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MRS. PINNER'S LITTLE GIRL 








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pftomise^ rnammoc tiiwfo I oioufo tsccke i 

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lUBRARY or WN3Kf:sS 

Oooieii {iecMveg 

stp 18 jya6 

QooYnsni cniTY 
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AXC. 

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COPY 8.' 




Copyright, 1905, 

By George W. Jacobs & Co. 
Publishedt August, igo^. 



To 

Little Cousin 
Dorothy 






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CONTENTS 


I. 

The Little Family 


. II 

II. 

Aunty’s Reasoning . 


• 31 

in. 

Mary’s New Home . 


• 51 

IV. 

The Thunder-Storm 


• 71 

V. 

A Surprise 


. 89 

VI. 

Aunty’s Letter 


. 107 

VII. 

The Promise Fulfilled . 


. 125 

VIII. 

A Party .... 


. 145 

IX. 

Mary Writes to Dave . 


. 163 

X. 

At the Asylum 


. 181 

XI. 

An Anxious Time 


. 197 

XII. 

All’s Well 


. 215 





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ILLUSTRATIONS 


“ I promised mamma that I would take y' 

care of Kit and Buz and the baby Frontispiece 

It’s Mrs. Pinner’s little girl ” Facing page 74 / 

Down to the pond to look at the ducks “ “ 152/ 

“The baby doesn’t know me,” she 

faltered . . . . . “ “186/ 

Outside in that terrible storm . . “ “ 212 / 





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‘A I'tfw 



CHAPTER I 
The Little Family 

There is no better way of beginning the story 
of “Mrs. Pinner’s Little Girl” than by giving 
verhatim the initial pages of Mary Dainger- 
field’s diary ; so here they are : 

“ J uly 15. — I told mamma that I would write in 
my diary as soon as I was ten years old. To- 
day is my tenth birthday. I did not know how 
bad I would feel when I opened the book and 
took up the pen, for mamma gave me the book and 
papa gave me the pen, and both mamma and papa 
are dead. 

“ It was hard for my mother to have papa go 
off to the hospital while she was sick in bed her- 
self, but she thought, and so did I, that he was 
going off to the hospital to be cured and would 
come back well and strong. The news of papa’s 
death just killed mamma, that is what the doctor 
and everybody says. 

“ The book in which I am writing is very thick 


14 Mrs. Pinner* s Little Girl 

and the pages are very long. My pen has a gold 
point and an ebony handle. I always remember 
that my mother gave me the book and my father 
gave me the pen, and I will keep my diary con- 
scientiously and never forget to begin my sen- 
tences with a capital letter. My mother said : 

‘ There is no use for you to begin a diary, little 
daughter, if you do not intend to keep it con- 
scientiously.’ 

“Kit is sliding down the banisters. She is 
making a terrible rumpus. I wonder that Cousin 
Cynthia does not make her stop. Cousin Cynthia 
says that Kit is very young for seven years old. 
She says her full name, Katharine, is prettier than 
Kit. She calls Kit Katharine, and is trying to 
teach her to be quiet and ladylike. I think it 
will take a very long time. 

“ That is Buz laughing. Buz has a strong laugh 
for such a little boy ; but he is round and fat if he 
is not tall. Buz believes he is tall and sometimes 
he says he is a man. Kit tells him that men talk 
plainly but Buz says he does not care if they do, 
he is a man anyway. Buz says, ‘ I wear pants 
like my papa, and I wear a coat like my papa, and 
I wear a shirt like my papa, so I am a man, Miss 


The Little Family 15 

Kit.’ Only Buz says, ‘ So zam man, Miss Tit.’ 
His real name is not Buz ; it is John Edward 
Daingerfield, the same as papa’s. Buz is just a 
funny little nickname, but even Cousin Cynthia 
does not think of calling him anything else. 

“ That is the baby crying. I am going to get 
a picture of the baby and paste it here on the 
leaf of my diary. It will look so cute. Mamma 
would like me to do it, I know. I doubt if there 
is a prettier baby in the world than ours, yet he 
has only four teeth and hardly any hair and he 
slobbers all over you. The baby is named after 
one of our great-grandfathers, the one who 
was an officer in the Kevolutionary War. I am 
glad of that. I think it must have been a fine 
thing for a man to have been an officer in the Eev- 
olutionary War. It is a good thing that Buz is 
named after papa or he would be jealous of the 
baby, for Buz says he is a ‘ zoldier ’ already. But 
I will be surprised if ever anybody calls the baby 
Sterling Frederick Mortimer. How we call him 
baby. Cousin Cynthia and all of us. One day he 
slobbered over Cousin Cynthia’s sleeve. 

“ Cousin Cynthia came here as soon as mamma 
died. She thinks that Willowbrook is a queer 


i6 Mrs* Pinner's Little Girt 

little place for people to live. She thought we 
lived in a town. She has been with us three 
weeks and I am wondering and wondering and 
wondering about something : Is Cousin Cynthia 
an old maid ? 

“ July 16 . — I always thought we were rich. I 
don’t know why for we live in a little house. 
Almost all the houses in Willowbrook are little. 
There are only ten. Ours has a large side yard 
and a lot. Mamma said that was why papa 
rented it and because it is only five minutes’ walk 
from the station. Cousin Cynthia told me last 
night that we are very poor, that we have noth- 
ing to live on. It is very sad. She says that papa 
received a good salary from the government but 
that he and mamma never could manage to save 
any money. She says that she has been worry- 
ing a great deal about what is to become of us, 
for she is poor too, and has to support her uncle 
who lives in a hospital. If I were Cousin 
Cynthia’s uncle I would not live in a hospital. I 
felt strange when Cousin Cynthia was talking and 
my eyes seemed to grow big and hot. I did not 
cry but I had what papa said was a frog in your 
throat. People say that I am very sensible for 


17 


The Little Family 

my age, and I suppose that is the reason Cousin 
Cynthia told me all those things last night. She 
said that poor people ought not to marry, and 
when she said it she put me in mind of Kit, for 
she wrung her hands like Kit does when she says 
things that she ought not to say. Papa always 
said : ‘ Look out for whaPs coming when Miss 

Kit wrings her hands.’ I went to bed and could 
not go to sleep for a long time. It is so sad to 
think that Kit and Buz and the baby haven’t any 
father and mother, and oh, I want them so much 
myself ! 

“ I must always remember one thing : I 
promised mamma that I would take care of Kit 
and Buz and the baby. 

“ I really believe that Cousin Cynthia is an old 
maid. 

“ J uly 17. — Cousin Cjmthia received a letter in 
the morning mail. She looked red in the face 
after she had gone over the letter several times, 
and after breakfast she told aunty that she 
wanted her to clean the parlor and the hall, and to 
wash off the porch. She did not tell us who had 
written the letter though Kit asked her six times. 
She is in her room now answering the letter, for 


i8 Mrs* Pinner's Little Girl 

Buz peeped through the keyhole and saw her. 
Buz never used to look through the keyhole, 
neither did aunty. When I tell Buz it is not 
honorable, he says he will not do it any more, 
but he is so little that he forgets. 

“Aunty is cleaning the parlor and I know she 
is grumbling. I will go down and help her if 
she will let me.” 

The little girl who closed the pages of her 
diary on that seventeenth day of July and care- 
fully put the book away out of reach of Buz 
and out of sight of Kit, was something that was 
very sweet to look at. She was tall for her ten 
years of age, though extremely slight ; her brown 
hair, parted in the middle, waved from the part 
and curled on the shoulders, not riotously, like 
Kit’s ; everything about little Mary Daingerfield 
was demure. The expression of the brown eyes 
was demure and so also was that of the pretty 
little mouth. People credited the child with a 
great amount of sense, and her mother had made 
a companion of her. 

Aunty was grumbling viciously when Mary 
appeared in the parlor. 

“ House-cleanin’s wuck for de spring,” she said, 


The Little Family 19 

“ an’ not for de broilin’ summah-time. I nevah 
heard o’ washin’ paints in de summah-time when 
dey done ben gone ovah in de spring. Yas, I’s got 
to wash de paints in dis room an’ de hall, dem’s 
de ordahs. I’s ole an’ rheumatic an’ house-cleanin’ 
nigh brecks my back, but dat don’t meek no dif- 
f’ence.” 

“Can I help you wash the paints, aunty,” 
asked the little girl. 

“ No,” said the old woman, a smile lighting up 
her face for an instant, “ I ain’t gunno hab you 
drabblin’ roun’ in no ole scrub watah ; you’s a 
heap betta off wid yo’ books, little Miss Mary. 
I ain’t gunno forgit in no hurry dat yo’ learned 
me an’ Kit to write las’ wintah.” 

“ You learned quicker than Kit,” said Mary, 
“and you make nicer capital letters than Kit. 
Papa said Kit’s capital letters looked like 
Greek.” 

“ He say mine was fust-rate,” said aunty, sol- 
emnly, “ an’ he wan’t no brag an’ bluster 
neida.” 

Then aunty gave her attention to the scrub- 
bing again and worked herself more and more 
wrothy. When she was really through with the 


20 Mrs* Pinner's Little Girl 

house-cleaning, she sought her kitchen in an un- 
happy frame of mind, her last winter’s teacher 
following at her heels. Safe in her own domain 
the old woman said some disrespectful things of 
Miss Cynthia Daingerfield. 

“ Keckon,” she said, “ mebbe Miss Cynthy done 
took it into her haid to git married while she 
down here at Willowbrook an’ has had de house 
cleaned up for de weddin’. Reckon she think she 
got de chillen she best get de man. Wal, I hope 
de house is spick an’ span enough to suit her 
hifolutin taste, I know my back’s mos’ broke 
crawlin’ roun’ lak a dog. Nex’ lettah she write 
to de man she do well to ordah him fotch a cook 
’long to de weddin’ feast, for I give warnin’ right 
here dat I’s ready to dare off de premises.” 

“ That would be mean of you, aunty,” said the 
little girl. 

“ What’ll be mean of me, Mary Daingerfield ? ” 
demanded the old woman, for when she was 
angry she always called her little Miss Mary 
“ Mary Daingerfield,” and she talked very fast. 
“What’ll be mean of me, Mary Daingerfield?” 

“ To go away and leave us,” answered Mary, 
“ and after I taught you to write, too.” 


21 


The Little Family 

Thinking of last winter and the writing les- 
sons, the troublesome frog had jumped into 
Mary’s throat. 

Aunty had seated herself in her favorite chair. 
It was a queer-looking chair, painted green, and 
was not a bit comfortable. The old woman’s 
sleeves were rolled up to her shoulders, and her 
hands were whitish from the scrubbing. 

“ Little Miss Mary, come here,” she said, and 
held out her bare arms. 

The little girl went right into them. 

‘‘ I’d nevah leave you alls, honey, if I had my 
say,” said aunty. Her arms were fast around 
Mary and her voice sounded as if she, too, had a 
frog in her throat. “Ain’t I lived wid you sence 
you was born an’ yo’ mamma befo’ you ? Ain’t 
de changes what’s come jest brecking my ole 
black hawt ? ” 

“ I don’t believe that Cousin Cynthia is going 
to be married,” said Mary. 

Aunty gave a derisive laugh. 

“ Ho man in dese pawts would hab her,” she 
declared. “Miss Cynthy’s too clean for de 
Maryland folks.” 

It seemed to little Miss Mary that aunty was 


22 Mrs, Pinner' s Little Girl 

not fair either to her cousin Cynthia or to Mary- 
land, for certainly the house looked very nice 
when it was clean. 

“ Cousin Cynthia is real pretty,” she said. 

“ Den why’n she git married ? ” asked aunty. 

Mary was glad that she had an explanation to 
give. 

“ Cousin Cynthia thinks that poor people 
oughtn’t to marry,” she said, gravely. 

“ De ole Yankee ! ” sneered aunty, adding in 
the same breath, “Den what she git dat letta 
for ? Dat letta hed a one-cent stamp on it, dat 
letta come from round here somewhar.” 

“ I am sure that Cousin Cynthia is not going 
to be married,” said little Miss Mary, with con- 
viction, “but after awhile she will have to go 
back to Boston to teach her school and to take 
care of her uncle who lives in a hospital. If you 
go and get mad, aunty, and find yourself 
another service place, there’ll be nobody left 
but us children. I promised mamma that I 
would take care of Kit and Buz and the baby, 
but I don’t see how I can manage.” 

“You promised your mamma dat?” cried 
aunty. “ You pore little soul I ” 


The Little Family 23 

“ If you leave us I don’t see how I will do it,” 
said Mary, forlornly. 

“How you gunno do it if I stay wid you, 
little Miss Mary ? ” inquired the old woman, 
hoarsely. 

“ Oh, I have thought of a way,” returned the 
little girl. “ I will tell you all about it after 
Cousin Cynthia goes back to Boston if you don’t 
go and find yourself another service place.” 

The next day the occupants of the little house, 
at least those who had arrived at the age of 
reason, understood why it was that Miss Cynthia 
Daingerfield had ordered the house-cleaning. 

At about three o’clock in the afternoon a 
carriage drove up to the gate and an old lady 
and a gentleman stepped out. The doors and 
windows were all open and everybody saw them. 
Cousin Cynthia met them at the door. The 
front yard and the steps belonging to the little 
house were both steep and the old lady was 
very fat. She was panting hard as she stepped 
into the hall, but she was in a good humor. 
The old gentleman was in a good humor, too. 

“ Mr. and Mrs. Pinner, I presume,” said 
Cousin Cynthia with a graceful and friendly bow. 


24 


Mrs^ Pinner^s Little Girl 


“Yes, here we are,” said the old gentleman, 
holding out his hand. “We received your note 
this morning, and we thank you for it. Miss 
Daingerfield, both Mrs. Pinner and myself 
thank you for it.” 

“Yes, indeed. Miss Daingerfield, we certainly 
do thank you for that letter,” said the old lady. 

By this time Mr. and Mrs. Pinner were in the 
parlor ; they had taken seats and Cousin Cynthia 
had handed Mrs. Pinner a fan, for the day was 
very warm. Mary and Kit and Buz, who had 
escaped from the hall into the parlor, had quickly 
run back again into the hall, for none of them 
had ever seen the visitors and they felt that 
their coming was an important event. 

“ May we see all the children ? ” asked the old 
lady. 

“Eemember, wife, that we’re after a little 
girl,” said the old gentleman. 

These words were sufiicient invitation for Kit, 
who ran into the parlor. Buz backed against 
the hall wall and put both of his hands over his 
mouth. He wished to be polite and not laugh, 
but the old lady was so very fat. 

The demure little brown-eyed maid was filled 


The Little Family 25 

with curiosity. She gave a step forward and 
her Cousin Cynthia nodded for her to come 
in. 

Buz stifled his laugh and followed Mary on 
tiptoe. 

“Now, you want to see the baby,” said Kit, 
addressing the old lady, and before any one 
could prevent her she was running up the stairs. 

Aunty said afterward : 

“ I was ’shamed o’ myself for not dressin’ dat 
chile in his Sunday bes’ ’fore I left him go to de 
pawla but dat Kit she’s quicker’n a fly.” 

Kit found the baby sitting on the floor near 
the door and, without asking leave, she grabbed 
him and ran. 

“ Here we all are,” she said, putting the baby 
down in front of Mrs. Pinner. 

Buz had seated himself on the sofa beside 
Mary. He was staring at Mrs. Pinner and try- 
ing his best to be a polite boy, but every now 
and then he gave a little giggle. 

“ This is a mighty lively little girl,” said the 
old gentleman, looking at Kit. 

“Yes,” said the old lady, “but she isn’t as 
pretty as the other one with the brown hair.” 


26 


Mrs* Pinner's Little Girl 


“ My hair is light brown,” said Kit ; “ it used 
to be yellow.” 

“ I think I heard the little boy call her name 
awhile ago,” said Mrs. Pinner, regarding Mary 
with interest. “ Father, you ask her her 
name.” 

“ What is your name, little girl ? ” inquired 
Mr. Pinner. 

“Mary,” answered the little girl, and both 
Mr. and Mrs. Pinner smiled appreciatively. 

“ I’m Buz,” said Buz. 

“My name is Katharine Daingerfield,” said 
Kit, giving a toss to her light-brown or yellow 
hair, “ and I’m seven years old.” 

Cousin Cynthia was not her usual self or she 
would have made Kit sit down and behave. 

“ Mary is a very sensible child,” she said. 

“ I’m sure of it,” cried the old gentleman, 
“ and she certainly is prett3^” 

Mary’s mamma and papa had never called her 
pretty in her hearing, aunty was the only person 
in the house who did it. She looked down at 
her feet and then at Buz’s which were swinging 
vigorously. 

“ See the lovely color in her cheeks, father,” 


The Little Family 27 

said the old lady. “ Little girl, look right here, 
please, I want to see your eyes.” 

“ Mary ! ” called Cousin Cynthia ; and Mary 
looked. 

“ Brown,” said the old gentleman. 

“ I knew it,” said the old lady, tenderly. 

“The baby’s are brown, too,” said Kit. 
“ Look ! ” 

Then Cousin Cynthia noticed Kit and bade all 
the children run away and play. 

As Mary was picking up the baby, for Kit 
never took things back, Mrs. Pinner patted her 
on the cheek and said to the old gentleman : 

“Just see, father, how nicely she takes hold of 
the baby. I know all these children are just 
wrapped up in her. Aren’t they now. Miss 
Daingerfield ? ” 

“ She is a very sensible child,” repeated Cousin 
Cynthia, “ and the children are very fond of her.” 

Katharine Daingerfield, aged seven years, was 
a great person for trying to please people. Once 
upon a time her father had been afraid that Kit 
was going to stand on her head for the bishop. 
She understood that Mary was in favor and she 
turned at the door and called back : 


28 


Mrs^ Pinner* s Little Girl 


“ That girl keeps a diary. Mamma gave her 
the book and papa gave her the pen and she’s 
written lots of pages and she hasn’t a blot on any 
of them!” 

The children went up-stairs directly, hoping to 
find aunty, but she was not there ; so they stood 
at a front window and watched for Mr. and Mrs. 
Pinner to leave the house. It seemed a long time 
before the carriage started on its way home. 
Scarcely was the carriage out of sight before 
Cousin Cynthia appeared wearing her hat. 

“ Cousin Cynthia is going for a walk. What’s 
that for ? ” demanded Kit. 

“ Doin’ to det tandy,” said Buz. 

Whatever was Cousin Cynthia’s quest, hardly 
had she reached the sidewalk when the attention 
of the three watchers was diverted. Aunty came 
bounding up the steps and into the room. 

Instinctively the children knew that the old 
woman had been listening at the back parlor 
door. 

“ Wal, I cla’ to goodness ! ” she cried. 

“ What did they want, aunty ? ” asked Kit. 

Aunty seated herself on the floor. The baby 
was making for her when she opened her arms 


The Little Family 29 

and said, “Little Miss Mary, come here,” and 
Mary reached her before the baby. 

“ Dat lady come huntin’ a chile,” said aunty. 
“ She live five mile off, past de crossroads, an’ she 
come here huntin’ a chile.” 

“ To take home ? ” demanded Kit. 

Aunty nodded, and little Miss Mary’s head fell 
down upon her shoulder. 

“To keep?” said Kit, and again aunty 
nodded. 

They were all on top of the old woman by this 
time, the baby whimpering because he did not 
have the best place. 

“ What zhe want shile for ? ” inquired Buz. 

“ Why don’t she get an orphan ? ” said Kit. 

“ Yes,” said Mary, with a sob, “ why doesn’t 
she get an orphan ? ” 

“ Wal, ef you alls ain’t de funniest chillen ! ” 
cried aunty, and her words caused Mary to re- 
member that she and Kit and Buz and the baby 
were orphans sure enough. Mrs. Pinner was 
after an orphan, a little orphan girl, to take home 
and to keep. 

“ Zhe big fat old lady,” declared Buz. 

“ You’re little an’ fat yo’self. Buz,” said aunty. 


30 Mrs* Pinner^s Little Girl 

“ an’ some day I reckon you’ll be mighty big and 
fat. Dar ain’t no call for you to meek fun o’ fat 
folks.” 

“ I will ! ” cried Buz. 

“You’ll laugh out loud at her, won’t you, 
Buz ? ” asked Kit. 

“ Yes, will,” said Buz. 

“ Aunty,” said Mary, appealingly, “ why don’t 
you say that Mrs. Pinner shan’t have any of your 
children ? ” 

“ Zhan’t have me I ” cried Buz, furiously. 

“ She shan’t have me, that’s certain,” said Kit. 
“ Buz, you speak for the baby.” 

“ Zhan’t dit me,” said Buz, speaking for the 
baby. 

“Mary, why don’t you say she shan’t have 
you ? ” demanded Kit. 

“ Zhe zhan’t dit Mary,” screamed Buz. 

But Kit was not satisfied. 

“Mary is crying,” she said. “Aunty, why 
don’t you speak for her when you see that she’s 
crying ? Why don’t you say that the fat lady 
shan’t have her ? ” 

“’Cause, honey,” said aunty, “de fat lady is 
awful rich.” 






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CHAPTER II 
Aanty^s Reasoning 

When Kit asked aunty why she did not say 
that the fat lady should not have Mary, and 
aunty, so mercilessly and mercenarily replied, 
“ ’Cause, honey, de fat lady is awful rich,” little 
Miss Mary loosened herself from the black arms 
and made her way first to the place where her 
precious diary was secreted and then, carrying 
the book together with an ink bottle and the 
ebony-handled pen, she went on up to the garret. 

“ I am sure now that Cousin Cynthia is an old 
maid,” she wrote in the book that her mamma 
had given her, ‘‘for no person but an old maid, 
or an ignorant person like aunty, would ever 
give people’s children away to other people. 
Cousin Cynthia has given me away to Mrs. 
Pinner who lives five miles off, past the cross- 
roads, and aunty is glad because Mrs. Pinner is 
rich.” 

That evening the little girl talked quite seri- 


Mrs^ Hnne/s Little Girt 


34 

ously to aunty on the subject of giving people’s 
children away to other people, and was surprised 
to find how deeply the old woman had consid- 
ered the question. 

“ Take it dis way, little Miss Mary,” she said. 
“Here is you four chillen lef’ in de world wid 
nobody to take keer you, for your Cousin Cynthy 
is certainy eetchin’ to git back to Boston. Here 
you is, den. You ain’t got no mamma an’ you 
ain’t got no papa an’ you’s jest bound to bo a 
burden on somebody, shore’s you live. Now, I 
say, ef any nice folks comes along an’ wants to 
take keer you, let ’em. It’s all right ; it’s jest as 
it should be, de Lord willin’. Ef I was your 
Cousin Cynthy I’d scour de neighborhood, se- 
lectin’ de proper sort o’ folks an’ I’d give every 
one you away, for a fact I would. I wouldn’t 
rest till I done give every one you away.” 

“Would you give Buz away ?” asked Mary. 

“ ’Deed I would,” answered aunty, with alac- 
rity, “ ’deed in double I would, but I’d be mighty 
keerful who I give him to. I’d never make de 
mistake o’ givin’ Buz to no ole particular people 
an’ have him bringin’ scand’lization on hissef. 
Yas, an’ I’d give de baby away too an’ I’d give 


Aunty's Reasoning 35 

Miss Fusty-boots Kit way fur off from whar I 
give Buz.” 

“You are a cruel woman,” said Mary. 

The little girl was sitting by the kitchen table 
during this talk and aunty was in her green chair. 

“Mary Daingerfield, what you call me cruel 
for ? ” snapped the old woman. 

“ Because you are,” answered Mary. “ If Buz 
and Kit are to be given away, I hope that they 
will live close together and see each other every 
day. I hope we all will be given away to people 
who live close together. Don’t you know that 
children forget each other if they don’t play 
together sometimes ? Who will Cousin Cynthia 
give the baby to, I wonder ! ” 

Aunty wondered also. ^^You is fixed,” she 
said. “ You is in clover. Dat ole Mr. Pinner is 
rollin’ in riches, an’ dat ole Mrs. Pinner gits ev’ry 
mortal thing she calls for. Dar ain’t nobody 
b’longin’ to ’em but a son an’ de Lawd knows 
whar Dave Pinner’s got to by dis time. He’s 
ben to Africa an’ Souf ’Merica an’ Kew York 
City, I b’lieve. Some says de ole folks hears 
from him right ’long an’ some says dey don’t, 
dey’s jest meckin’ out. Once dey had a gal, five 


36 Mrs* Hnner’^s Little Girl 

years older’n Dave. You ought to be monstrous 
glad, little Miss Mary, dat de gal went to heaven 
when she was ’bout as big as you, fer dat episode 
done lef’ Mrs. Pinner tender fer a little gal. 
Honey, I want tell you some’n, de Pinner meader, 
’pon my soul I’s tollin’ de born troof, de Pinner 
meader is two mile long.” 

“ I wish Mr. Dave Pinner would come home,” 
said Mary, giving no thought to the lengthy 
meadow. 

“ Dat wouldn’t fotch de little gal back,” said 
aunty, philosophically, “ would it ? Dave Pinner 
ain’t apt to turn up after all dese years, honey. 
His hawt ain’t set on money, nohow. You best 
be satisfied de way things is. Little Miss Mary, 
look right here to me an’ listen. Folks give you 
credit for havin’ an ole haid on yo’ shoulders. I 
knows it ain’t as ole as you gits credit for, but 
yo’ papa said you got de longest memory he ever 
seen, an’ dar wan’t no brag an’ bluster ’bout him 
neida, an’ dar wan’t no end to yo’ mamma trustin’ 
you. I’s yo’ friend, yo’ ole black aunty, who 
loves you fit to breck her hawt an’ way down in 
her soul. De Pinners, as yo’ own mamma would 
say, ef she wah here to-night, kin give you every 


37 


Aunty's Reasoning 

Vantage. You’ll grow up to be a ’complished 
young lady. You’ll have yo’ silk dresses an’ yo’ 
ribbons an’ yo’ jewelry. You’ll have yo’ gold 
watch an’ chain an’ you’ll ride in a kerridge all 
yo’ born days. Dar certain’y ain’t no call for 
you to be bodderin’.” 

“But I am bothering a whole lot,” said the 
little girl, winking back the tears. “I don’t 
care for old Mr. Pinner’s money and I don’t 
want to belong to old Mrs. Pinner. I am 
bothering about being separated from Kit and 
Buz and the baby. After awhile the baby won’t 
know who I am.” 

“ You is got a mighty ole haid on yo’ 
shoulders ! ” cried aunty, admiringly. 

“ Won’t it be awful ? ” 

“ Putty bad,” said aunty, slowly. 

Hope rose in the little girl’s heart as she 
surve3"ed aunty’s dismal countenance. With the 
old woman’s powerful assistance she was very 
certain that matters could be arranged in such a 
manner as to keep the Daingerfield children 
together. 

But the dismal countenance underwent a 
change, suddenly it glowed all over. 


38 Mrs* Ptnner^s Little Girl 

“No, little Miss Mary, dat ain’t so,” said 
aunty. “ De baby will hear talk of you whar- 
ever he is. He’ll be tole how you come to be 
Mrs. Pinner’s little gal an’ he’ll grow up puffin’ 
proud o’ you. He’ll look for you rollin’ ’long de 
big road in dat two boss kerridge an’ he’ll spy 
you out in de chuch an’ tell ev’rybody near him 
dat Mrs. Pinner’s little gal is his sister, Mary 
Daingerfield.” 

It seemed to Mary Daingerfield that that 
would be awful, too, but aunty was chuckling. 

“ I see Buz an’ Kit pointin’ you out too, an’ 
tollin’ folks dat Mrs. Pinner’s little gal is own 
sister to de two of ’em,” she continued, pride in 
her voice and in her beady eyes. “ An’ some 
time mebbe you might ask ’em all ovah to a 
pawty.” 

“ If I ask them to a party I will lock them up 
in a closet and keep them,” said Mary. 

“ De fat lady will be too smawt to let you 
hold d© pawty while you’s entertainin’ sech 
feelin’s as dat,” declared aunty, laughing as if 
it were a great joke. “ What she want have a 
boy like Buz in de house fer ? Think she want 
somebody laughin’ at her from mawnin’ till 


39 


Aunty Reasoning 

night ? Buz betta be keerful or de Lawd’ll pay 
him back by makin’ him big as a borl. Mrs. 
Pinner didn’t take no stock in Kit neida while I 
was stealin’ a peep. She ain’t struck on no little 
smawt-cake chillen. What she wants is a chile 
dat’s pretty an’ has got dark hair an’ brown eyes, 
like her little gal’s what’s dead, an’ dat sets 
round readin’ an’ dat writes in her diary. She 
took her selection mighty quick, an’ you’s up to 
de top o’ de ladda ef you is on’y ten years ole.” 

“I supose you will be glad to get another 
place, aunty,” said little Miss Mary, trying to 
speak coldly. 

“ How you know I’ll be glad, Mary Dainger- 
field ? ” cried aunty. “ How you know I’ll be 
glad to git anodda place ? ” 

“ Because you are glad we are all going to be 
given away ; because you want us all to be given 
away as soon as possible, that’s why,” retorted 
the little girl. 

Aunty sat silent for a long while. Her voice 
was calm and philosophical when she again 
spoke. 

“ Ef you all is give to de right sort o’ people 
I is glad,” she said, solemnly, “glad for my soul ; 


40 


Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 


but I do hope Miss Cynthy is keerful not to give 
Buz to no ole particular people an’ have him 
bringin’ scand’lization on hissef.” 

At that moment Buz was bringing scandaliza- 
tion on himself up-stairs where Cousin Cynthia 
was trying to put him to bed. They could hear 
him making a terrible noise, and after awhile, 
when they thought that things had quieted 
down, the kitchen door opened and he popped in. 

The little fellow was in his night-drawers and 
was flourishing a long pasteboard sword. 

“ Ain’t no zoldier on land now,” he said, em- 
phatically, “I’m a tommodore.” 

“ What you talkin’ ’bout, Buz ? ” asked aunty. 

Mary explained that Buz meant that he was 
not going to be a soldier on land any more, that 
he was a commodore instead, and that a commo- 
dore was a soldier on the sea. 

“ Has you run yo’ sword through yo’ Cousin 
Cynthy ? ” inquired aunty. 

Buz looked surprised. “Tommodores don’t 
fight ladies,” he said. 

“ Jest kicks away from ’em an’ runs, I reckon,” 
said aunty. 

Buz smiled. He was such a pretty little boy 


Aunty's Reasoning 41 

when he smiled, that you felt like putting your 
arms around him and giving him a kiss. 

Dragging his pasteboard sword along the 
kitchen floor he went over to aunty and climbed 
into her lap. 

“ Tell me more about ole fat lady,” he said. 
“ Tell me more about little Miss Mary and ole 
fat lady.” 

Then the heroine of this little story knew that 
while she was in the garret, writing that dismal 
sentence in her diary, aunty had been treacher- 
ously telling Kit and Buz of the wonderful luck 
that had befallen her, and she knew that they, 
too, were glad. 

“ Tell me about the orzes,” pleaded Buz. 

“Law, Buz,” cried aunty, “I ain^t got de 
time; dar’s Miss Cynthy aftah you. We’s got 
to run an’ git to bade.” She gathered the boy in 
her arms and carried him where he belonged. 

An hour afterward, when Kit was peacefully 
sleeping beside her sister. Cousin Cynthia came 
into the children’s room. She wore her night- 
gown and her hair was falling about her shoul- 
ders. She looked very, very pretty. 

“ Are you awake, Mary ? ” she asked. She did 


42 Mrs, Pinner* s Little Girl 

not wait for an answer but crossed the floor and 
knelt down by the bed. Presently her arm was 
around the little, wakeful girl. 

“ Don’t cry, Mary,” she said, I am as sorry as 
you are, but I couldn’t help it.” Then Cousin 
Cynthia was crying too. 

“ I don’t want to be rich,” said Mary, as soon 
as she could speak. 

“ I know you don’t,” said Cousin Cjmthia. 

“ I just want to live with Kit and Buz and the 
baby.” 

“ I know you do,” repeated Cousin Cynthia. 

“ I promised mamma that I would take care of 
Kit and Buz and the baby.” 

When little Mary Daingerfield told her Cousin 
Cynthia that, she felt the arm about her tightening. 

By and by Cousin Cynthia said : 

“ Mamma did not know how things were going 
to be, Mary, mamma died believing that papa’s 
life insurance policy would keep her dear little 
people together, and poor papa had let the policy 
run out. If mamma could speak to you and me 
to-night she would say that she was glad that 
you were to go to Mrs. Pinner’s.” 

Mary did not know exactly what a life in- 


43 


Aunty's Reasoning 

surance policy was, although she understood 
that it was a sad thing to let it run out ; but she 
felt sure that if her mamma were in the room she 
would declare that her little girl should never go 
to Mrs. Pinner’s. 

Then Cousin Cynthia went on to say that she 
would like nothing better than to be able to keep 
her cousin’s children together, and that if she 
could manage to do it she certainly would, even 
if there were four Mrs. Pinners begging fiercely 
for them, but she was only an assistant in a 
school and had a difficult time making ends meet. 

“ When Mrs. Pinner comes for you, you will go 
quietly and like a little lady, won’t you, Mary ? ” 
she asked. “ Tou will not set the other children 
crying? You will go as if you were satisfied, 
won’t you, Mary ? ” 

Mary answered that she would go quietly and 
like a little lady, that she would not set the 
other children crying, but she did not promise to 
go as if she were satisfied. 

“You know that I am doing the very best I 
can ? ” Cousin Cynthia then asked. 

“ Yes,” said Mary, faintly, “ but some day I will 
try to get us all together again.” 


44 Pinne/s Little Girt 

“ You dear little thing I ” said Cousin Cynthia, 
and hugged her tightly, with both arms, like her 
mamma would have done. 

The tender voice and the affectionate hug made 
Mary sorry that she had written in her diary 
that she was sure Cousin Cynthia was an old 
maid. 

“ Was papa a Yankee ? ” she asked, meekly. 

“ Yes, dear,” said Cousin Cynthia. “ Why ? ” 
A real Yankee ? ” 

“Yes, dear.” 

“ Then you must be glad that you are a Yankee 
too. You must be very proud of being a 
Yankee.” 

“ I am,” said Cousin Cynthia. 

Then followed another long talk. In this talk 
Cousin Cynthia told the little girl that when she 
went to live with Mrs. Pinner, she must act as 
she knew her mamma and papa would wish to 
see her act, in which case she would be a dear 
little girl and Mr. and Mrs. Pinner would love 
her from the beginning. She told her that she 
would live in a fine house over at Hayfields and 
that no doubt she would wear very beautiful lit- 
tle dresses, but that she must never grow vain. 


Aunty* s Reasoning 45 

She said that Mr. and Mrs. Pinner, being old, 
were likely to shower attention upon a child that 
they took into their house, but she believed that 
Mary had too much sense to allow herself to be 
spoiled ; that she was very glad, indeed, on this 
account, that Mrs. Pinner had not chosen Kit. 

When Cousin Cynthia finished her talk and 
went away, Mary cried again, she could not help 
it, and she wished and wished that Dave Pinner 
would come home and tell his mother that she 
should not bring a little girl to Hayfields. 

It seemed to her that Dave Pinner must be as 
big as a giant, the fat lady was so enormous, and 
that he could have his own way with his mother ; 
most men and boys had their own way with their 
mothers in all the books that she had ever read. 
Even Buz often had his owm way with his 
mamma. 

After she had wished that Dave Pinner would 
come home and tell his mother that she should 
not bring a little girl to that great house, she 
turned over and looked at the moonlight falling 
on the floor. It was soft and beautiful and she 
thought again of Cousin Cynthia in her white 
night-gown with her hair loose over her shoulders, 


Mrs, Hnner^s Little Girl 


46 

and she put her thoughts into words and spoke 
them in a low voice : 

“ I do not believe that Cousin Cynthia is an old 
maid.” 

Sometimes the best of us think different 
thoughts at night from what we do in the day- 
time; but in the broad light of the following 
day Mary Daingerfield made this entry in her 
diary : 

“ I do not believe that Cousin Cynthia is an 
old maid,” and went on to write : 

“ I am glad that if Cousin Cynthia could make 
ends meet she would take care of all of us and 
keep us together. 

It must be in the Daingerfield family not to 
be able to make ends meet. 

“ But if aunty were not determined that we all 
should be given away, I think that I could very 
likely make ends meet. 

“ Aunty says she knows that both Mr. and Mrs. 
Pinner will come for me, and I suppose they will. 
Both of them will be laughing. I am to go 
quietly like a lady. I promised Cousin Cynthia 
that I would. And I promised that I would not 
set the other children crying. There is no danger 


47 


Aunty Reasoning 

of that. If Kit and Buz cry it will be because 
they want to go to Mrs. Pinner’s, too. Aunty 
has been telling them big tales about everything 
over at Hayfields. I don’t know whether she 
was ever there or not but Kit and Buz think that 
she was.” 

“ Mary I Mary ! ” called Kit, “ where are 
you ? ” 

“ I’m busy,” Mary called back. 

Then Kit was in the room. 

“If you want your diary to go into your 
trunk,” she said, “you better give it to me. 
Cousin Cynthia is ready to shut it up.” 

The precious book was handed over, and Kit 
ran with it to the trunk and put it in. When 
she returned Buz was with her. 

“ You will have a lovely room to sleep in,” said 
Kit ; “ aunty told me so. There will be pictures 
all over the walls, pictures of little girls and boys 
and dogs and cats and everything.” 

“ Pictures of orzes,” said Buz. 

“Yes, of course, there will be pictures of 
horses,” said Kit. 

“ Mary will be a tween, won’t she. Tit ? ” 
asked Buz. 


48 Mrs. Pinner* s Little Girt 

Buz was very fond of the queens in the fairy 
tales, whether they were good or bad. 

“ Mary won’t be a queen at all,” said Kit, in a 
jealous voice, “she’ll just be Mary Daingerfield, 
the same as she is now.” 

“ She won’t, she will be a tween,” cried Buz, 
and he ran to Kit and slapped her. 

“I thought commodores didn’t fight ladies,” 
said Kit. “ Aunty says you told her. Buz Dain- 
gerfield, that commodores didn’t fight ladies.” 

“ You ain’t a lady,” said Buz. 

“ I am a lady I I am a lady ! ” screamed Kit, 
and Buz would have slapped her again only Mary 
caught him about the waist and held him. 

He struggled and then grew amicable, turned 
up his little round face and inquired, “Will you 
dive me a big orze, Mary ? ” 

“ Commodores don’t need horses,” called Kit, 
from the top of the banisters. 

“Won’t be tommodore if tan’t have a orze,” 
said Buz, in a fury. “ No, won’t be a tommodore 
if tan’t have a orze. Miss Tit.” 

“You had better be a commodore,” said Kit, 
“ if you ever want to see the Atlantic Ocean. I 
suppose you’re going to run the horse that Mary 


Aunty's Reasoning 49 

sends you from Mrs. Pinner’s right straight into 
the Atlantic Ocean, are you, Buz ? ” 

Buz retorted that he would if he wanted to; 
yes, if he wanted to, he would make his horse 
gallop straight into the Atlantic Ocean, he wasn’t 
afraid of no old horse, and he wasn’t afraid of no 
old Atlantic Ocean. 

“ Kit,” said Mary, gravely, “ you ought not to 
tease Buz. Some day he will be a soldier either 
on the land or the sea, and I know he will be a 
brave soldier.” 

“ If you give Buz a horse,” said Kit, “ you’ve 
got to give me something.” 

“ You want a lamb, don’t you. Tit ?” inquired 
Buz, who was restored to good humor and eager 
for new possessions in his household. 

“ Yes,” said Kit, “ I want a lamb and I want 
it to be white. I want a whole lot of other 
things, too.” 

“ Pigeons ! ” cried Buz, ecstatically. 

“Yes, pigeons,” agreed Kit. “Aunty says 
they’ve fan-tail pigeons. I want that kind, a 
whole lot of ’em.” 

“ And puppies,” suggested Buz. 

“ Oh, yes,” cried Kit, “ I want some puppies 


so 


Mrs. Hnner^s Little Girt 


very much. One anyway, Mary, a little spotted 
puppy about this long.” Kit measured a very 
short space in the air. 

Buz came very close to the brown-eyed sister 
who had let him gently out of her arms. Encas- 
ing her in a hug, he asked : 

“ When are you doin’ to do, Mary ? ” 

“She won’t tell,” said Kit, “because she’s 
homesick already, but I know — she is going to 
go to-morrow.” 










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CHAPTER III 
Mary's New Home 

Aunty was right in her surmise that both Mr. 
and Mrs. Pinner would come for Mary, and 
Mary was right, too, for the old gentleman and 
the old lady were laughing. They seemed to 
think that it was a fine thing for a little girl to 
step into the big carriage and exchange the home 
at Willow brook for the home at Hay fields, but 
they thought, too, that it was a fine thing for 
them to get possession of such a pretty little girl, 
and they conversed freely for a while on the sub- 
ject of these marvelous bargains. 

The old gentleman was driving, although a 
colored boy sat beside him. If the boy had held 
the reins and had paid no more attention to his 
horses than Mr. Pinner was doing, he would 
have been rebuked severely. Job had his 
thoughts on the subject, and the boss was illus- 
trating his own convictions : a person could drive 
with the back of the head to the horses. 


54 


Mrs* Pinner* s Little Girt 


“ Yes, father,” said Mrs. Pinner, complacently, 

weVe got a nice little girl to carry' home with 
us.” 

‘‘ I wonder if she likes candy ? ” said Mr. 
Pinner. 

“ Most little girls like candy,” returned the old 
lady. “ I wonder if she would like a little sew- 
ing-basket with thimble and scissors and needle- 
case ? ” 

They treated Mary as if she were a little bit of 
a girl. Buz would have laughed if he had heard 
them. 

But suddenly Mary felt as if she were a little 
bit of a girl. She had come away quietly, as she 
had promised her Cousin Cynthia she would do ; 
she had not set the children crying ; but she 
could not pretend to this old lady and gentleman 
that she was satisfied to leave the home in Wil- 
lowbrook, she could not do it. The troublesome 
frog jumped into her throat and she looked far 
out at the waving corn and the quivering leaves 
and the flickering shadows of the beautiful sum- 
mer morning. 

’ To Cabby — Used in certain country districts in the sens© 
of to take. 


Maty^s New Home SS 

“ Think she’s quite as robust as she might be, 
mother?” asked Mr. Pinner. “Wouldn’t it be 
wise to put the little sewing-basket back in the 
closet for a while? Wouldn’t a slide down the 
straw-stack now and then be of more benefit ? ” 

“She’s a mite homesick, that’s the matter,” 
said Mrs. Pinner. “ She’ll have to get used to us, 
father, and she can’t do it in a day, either. 
She’s lived in a rumpus, you know.” 

“ We’ve a great drove of little ducks at our 
house, Mary,” said Mr. Pinner, “ and I can’t tell 
you how many turkeys. Mother, now if she 
wants to help you feed the turkeys, you’ll let 
her?” 

“ Oh, yes, I’ll let her,” said Mrs. Pinner. 

“ Tell her how long you’ve been raising tur- 
keys, mother,” ordered the old gentleman, but, 
although the old lady laughed, she cried out, 
“ Pshaw ! ” discouragingly. 

Mr. Pinner, however, was not the kind of man 
to be discouraged. 

“ She’s been raising them ever since her first 
year at Hayfields,” he said. “ All her little tur- 
keys and all her big turkeys and all her turkey 
eggs are down on paper. I wonder now, if you 


5 ^ Mrs* Pinner's Little Girl 

were given the numbers, if you couldn’t work 
out the examples and give us the total.” 

“ Good gracious ! ” cried Mrs. Pinner, before 
Mary could answer. “You’ll scare the child, 
father. How old are you, Mary ? ” 

“ I was ten years old on the fifteenth of July,” 
said Mary. 

“ And I know your mamma didn’t send you to 
the public school,” said the old lady, emphatic- 
ally, “ for there are too many rough boys at- 
tending the public schools in these parts. Mr. 
Pinner, you wait till she goes to school before 
you put such terrible arithmetic questions to her.” 

“ I went to school to mamma and papa,” said 
Mary, in a meek little voice, “and I think I 
could work the example for Mr. Pinner if I had a 
pencil and paper and could go into a quiet room.” 

Mr. and Mrs. Pinner laughed so heartily that 
they shook the carriage, and even the colored 
giggled. 

“ Isn’t it delightful to hear a child talk like 
that ? ” said Mrs. Pinner at the end of her laugh. 
“ It’ll make us young again, father.” 

“ Do you think the spare-room will be quiet 
enough ? ” asked Mr. Pinner. 


Mary's New Home 57 

“ If it won’t, maybe Dave’s will answer the 
purpose,” said the old lady. 

“ Or she could go into the parlor, for a pencil 
never drops any blots. But my stars ! Mother, 
isn’t this the little girl that keeps a diary ? 
Hasn’t she written whole pages with pen and 
ink and never made a blot ? Isn’t that what 
the other little girl said ? ” 

“ Now, quit making fun,” said Mrs. Pinner. 
“Somebody doesn’t half like it. What is the 
other little girl’s name, Mary ? ” 

“ Katharine Daingerfield,” said Mary. 

“How old is she f ” 

“ Seven.” 

“ And I reckon maybe you do keep a diary. 
Don’t you ? ” 

“ Yes, I keep a diary,” said Mary. 

“ Well, don’t you let Mr. Pinner see it,” said 
the old lady. “ He’s just dying to know what’s 
in it. He has too much curiosity for an old 
gray-headed farmer, and we will have to get 
even with him somehow.” 

“ I would certainly like to see that diary ! ” 
exclaimed Mr. Pinner. 

But Mary told herself, then and there, that a 


Mrs, Pinner* s Little Girl 


58 

diary was a very personal affair. She might 
possibly in time show parts of it to Kit and Buz, 
and other parts to aunty ; she might read the 
whole of it to the baby when he was old enough 
to understand, but she would never under any 
circumstances show her diary to Mr. and Mrs. 
Pinner ; they need not expect it. 

“ What is the name of the little fat boy who 
sat on the sofa and made fun of me ? ’’ inquired 
Mrs. Pinner, pleasantly. 

Mary gave a start. She had hoped that the 
old lady had not noticed that Buz was laughing 
at her. 

His name is John Edward Daingerfield,” she 
said. 

“ John Edward ! ” repeated Mrs. Pinner, dis- 
approvingly. “ Well, I say that’s a shame I ” 
“We call him Buz,” explained Mary. 

“Buz is a whole heap better than John 
Edward,” said Mrs. Pinner. “ Of course when 
he’s big he can write his name out and John 
Edward won’t be half bad for a man, but Pm 
glad you call him Buz while he’s so cute and 
little. How old is Buz ? ” 

“ Kearly four,” answered Mary. 


Maiy^s New Home 59 

“We saw the baby too, mother,” reminded 
Mr. Pinner. “You mustn’t go and forget the 
baby. You must ask about the whole of ’em 
now you’ve started.” 

“ How old is the baby ? ” asked Mrs. Pinner. 

“ He’s a year old, but he has only four teeth, 
and he’s named Sterling Frederick Mortimer.” 

“ Gracious alive ! ” cried Mrs. Pinner. 

“We call him baby,” explained the little girl, 
adding proudly, “One of our great-grandfa- 
thers, named Sterling Frederick Mortimer, was 
an officer in the Ke volutionary War.” 

“ Isn’t that nice,” said the old gentleman. 

“ It certainly is,” said the old lady. “ I must 
write to Dave again.” 

“ Listen, Mary,” said Mr. Pinner, “ I am going 
to tell something on mother. She has a great, 
big, middle-aged son up in Hew York City and 
she’s trying her best to make him jealous of a 
certain little girl not a mile away from her. 
Ho, indeed, Dave Pinner never had a grand- 
father fighting in the Ke volutionary War.” 

“Mine was hilled in the Revolutionary War,” 
said Mary. “ You tell him that, Mrs. Pinner.” 
She was so glad that Dave’s people did hear 


6o 


Mrs. Pinne/s Little Girl 


from him and she hoped the big middle-aged son 
would get furiously jealous. 

It was a warm day and everybody was tired 
out when the horses turned in at a great painted 
gate, that opened and closed automatically, the 
kind of gate that only rich people have. There 
was a long lane with grass on either side of the 
hard white road and then you came to the 
house. It was an old-time stone house with 
dormer windows peeping out of the roof, and it 
stood in a shady yard. A dog tossed itself into 
the air, barked and subsided, and a colored 
woman appeared at the side of the house and 
stood like a statue. It seemed quiet and lonely. 

“Here we are, here we are, little girl,” said 
Mr. Pinner, and he lifted Mary out before he 
gave his hand to Mrs. Pinner. 

The old lady stepped from the carriage very 
slowly. 

“Well,” she said, “I’m glad those trips are 
over but I’m not sorry that we took them.” 

“ We’ll feel better when we get our dinner,” 
said Mr. Pinner. “ My I but it is a hot day ! 
Job,” he called back to the colored boy, “ mind 
you stand the horses in the branch and let them 


6i 


Maty's New Home 

get good and wet before they put their heads to 
the water. Well, well, well, weVe a cool, com- 
fortable home to be thankful for, that’s certain.” 

Mr. Pinner spoke the truth. Over at the little 
house in Willowbrook aunty was, no doubt, 
grumbling about the heat and Cousin Cynthia 
was wondering whether it was wiser to darken 
the rooms to keep out the sun or to open the 
shutters to let in the air. All the windows were 
open in the dining-room at Hayfields, and the 
cool air came in, and the sunshine was away off 
beyond the shady yard. 

There was an extra good dinner served that 
day at Hayfields, and the coffee-pot beside Mrs. 
Pinner’s plate was the largest coffee-pot that 
Mary Daingerfield had even seen. The old lady 
had the colored woman remove it as soon as she 
had poured out the coffee. She put a very little 
coffee in Mary’s cup and filled it up with cream. 
Mr. and Mrs. Pinner had large dinner plates and 
large cups and saucers while Mary had a little 
plate and a little cup and saucer, white with gold 
rims around them. They were very pretty. 

All during the dinner the two kind-hearted old 
people showed entirely too much attention to the 


62 


Mrs^ Hnne/s Little Girt 


little girl for her comfort. When the meal was 
over Mrs. Pinner said : 

“We will get rested, father, and then we will 
show Mary the house. She and I are going to 
lie down in the spare-room this afternoon, for a 
certain little room in this house will have to be 
seen for the first time with rested eyes.” 

The spare-room was large and cool like the 
dining-room. Its muslin curtains were flapping. 
Mary lay on the big bed beside Mrs. Pinner. 
She was wearing a little night-gown that did not 
belong to her, and she was thinking how pleased 
Cousin Cynthia would be, if the breeze that was 
flapping the muslin curtains would come in 
through the windows of the little house at Wil- 
low brook. 

“ I don’t believe you are going to sleep a bit,” 
remarked Mrs. Pinner. “ Is this the way you do 
at home ? ” 

“ I don’t always go to sleep,” answered Mary. 

“You lie awake and think, don’t you?” asked 
the old lady, curiously. She realized that this 
little girl was not an ordinary child. The other 
one, Katharine, would have tumbled over at once 
and gone to sleep. 


Mary's New Home 63 

“ What are you thinking of now, Mary ? ” she 
inquired. 

Mary answered with a question : “ Is it cooler 

in Boston than it is at Willowbrook ?” 

“Honey, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Pinner, 
honestly. “ I’ve never heard much about Boston. 
I know it’s terrible hot in Hew York City where 
Dave lives.” 

“ Cousin Cynthia lives in Boston,” said Mary. 

“ She does ? ” said Mrs. Pinner. “ She’s a fine 
little woman. Mr. Pinner and I were both very 
much taken with her. I hope she gets good 
homes for the other children. So she lives in 
Boston ? ” 

Then Mrs. Pinner turned over and went to 

% 

sleep. She slept for a long time and she snored. 
When she awoke, the little girl was lying on her 
back, evidently still thinking. 

Feeling the old lady’s eyes upon her Mary 
asked : “ If Cousin Cynthia gives Kit and Buz 

and the baby away, will she let me know ? ” 

“ Bless her little heart ! ” cried Mrs. Pinner, 
“if it isn’t always something about Kit and Buz 
and the baby. I will see that you get to know 
when your Cousin Cynthia gives them away.” 


Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 


64 

“ Thank you,” said the demure little maid. 

“ Now, Mary,” said the old lady, “ I want you 
to make yourself thoroughly at home here with 
Mr. Pinner and me. We^re old people and we 
haven’t had a child in the house since Dave was 
a youngster. If we don’t think to give you what 
you’d like to have, you must ask for it. Now, if 
you were home what would you do ? ” 

“ I would get up and take a bath,” said Mary. 

“Certainly, of course,” said Mrs. Pinner. 
“But did you have a bath-room over at your 
house ? ” 

Mary realized, while a flush stole over her face, 
that Mrs. Pinner regarded the house in Willow- 
brook as a poor little place, and so it was, and she 
wondered how she could ever have imagined that 
they were rich. 

“ No, we haven’t any bath-room,” she acknowl- 
edged, “ but we have a bath-tub, and in the sum- 
mer we have a little place back of the pump with 
sheets around it. The tub is in there. You can 
take a good bath just the same as if you had a 
bath-room.” 

“ Certainly, of course,” said Mrs. Pinner. 
“ But how about the, winter-time ? ” 


65 


Mary's New Home 

“We have the tub in the house, then.” 

“ How often, Mary,” asked Mrs. Pinner, 
gravely, “do you take a bath in the winter- 
time ? ” 

“ How often ? ” asked Mary. 

“ In the winter-time ? ” repeated Mrs. Pinner. 

“ I take it early in the morning in the winter,” 
said Mary. 

“ Every morning ? ” 

“ Of course,” said Mary. 

“ I thought maybe you did,” said Mrs. Pinner, 
“ and I’m glad of it. I’m glad that you belong 
to that kind of people. Some folks,” she added, 
“ bathe only on Saturday night. I don’t believe 
you even knew that.” 

“ Aunty bathes only on Saturday night,” said 
Mary. 

“ Who’s aunty ? ” 

“ She’s our servant. She’s black.” 

“Well,” explained the old lady, “there are 
people in the world a heap higher than aunty 
who bathe only on Saturday night ; but it isn’t 
right ; they’d feel better and they’d be healthier 
if they were to bathe two or three times a week, 
anyway. We have a nice bath-room here down 


66 


Mrs^ Pinner^ s Little Girl 


at the end of the hall. When you’re in your 
own little room you’ll have to run up the steps 
but you won’t mind that, and in the winter-time 
the hall is heated. We put in a furnace and the 
bath-room about ten years ago when we thought, 
from what Dave said in his letters, that he might 
be coming home, and we didn’t want him to find 
us too old-timey.” 

Mrs. Pinner sighed. 

“ I should think your son would like to come 
home,” said Mary. 

“ Well, I should, too,” said Mrs. Pinner, turn- 
ing about and looking straight into the little 
girl’s brown eyes. “ It’s a fine thing for a man 
to manage a great big farm like this, and Mr. 
Pinner would hand it over to Dave any day and 
be glad to do it. But Dave always was one of 
the restless sort of fellows, and he started out 
young to see the world. He’s done well every 
place he’s been. He’s kept himself right along 
and paid all his expenses. From the first he 
said he could do it. He paid his way in 
South America and in the West and everywhere 
else. He says that when he’s ready to settle 
down, he’ll come home and take the farm. 


Maiy*s New Home 67 

About ten years ago, from what he said in his 
letters, we thought that he was going to marry 
and come home. I wrote Dave about the fur- 
nace and the bath-room but — I don’t know — I 
think he had a good deal of trouble ; anyway, the 
next we heard he was in South Africa. I think 
if Dave were to step right in here and see his 
father, he would decide to come home and man- 
age. Mr. Pinner worries a good deal over little 
things and he’s old enough to take his rest.” 
She sighed again, and then she laughed out 
brightly. “ I didn’t get a little girl to tell my 
troubles to,” she said. “ I got her to make things 
lively for two old people. I know you want to 
splash around in that big bath-tub. Come, I’ll 
go with you and show you how to turn on the 
water. You mustn’t let too much water in the 
tub. I don’t want you to be in any danger when 
you’re taking a bath.” 

It was a dainty bath-room, well fitted up. Mrs. 
Pinner let the water run until the tub was about 
a fifth full then she turned the spigot off. 

Mary gave a little laugh. 

“Well,” cried the old lady, “have I done 
something to make you laugh at last ? I’m glad 


68 


Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 


of it, although it almost seemed as if it must 
have been the other one, that little Katharine or 
Kit. There ! I didn’t mean to turn you solemn 
again in such a hurry. What made you laugh ? 
Was it because I didn’t let enough water in the 
tub?” 

“We have it full to the top at home,” ex- 
plained Mary. 

“You do? And no spigot, child? Who 
pumped the water ? ” demanded Mrs. Pinner. 

“ The pump is easy,” said Mary. “ When 
aunty gets tired Kit and I finish. Sometimes 
Kit makes aunty tired for she will ride on the 
pump handle. When Buz bathes the water is al- 
most up to his neck.” 

“And he doesn’t holler?” asked the old 
lady. 

“ 'No, indeed,” answered Mary, proudly. “ Buz 
is going to be a soldier. He is not afraid of any- 
thing. He never thinks about getting drowned. 
He used to intend to be a soldier on land but 
now he says he is going to be a commodore. I 
guess he will because great-grandfather fought in 
the Kevolutionary War.” 

“ He must be a smart little fellow,” said Mrs. 


Maiy^s New Home 69 

Pinner, appreciatively. “ And he isn’t four years 
old yet ? ” 

“ Buz is three years and nine months old,” said 
the little girl. 

“And who told him anything about a commo- 
dore ? ” 

“ Oh, he heard people talking. Buz is awful 
smart. He is smarter than Kit. Kit makes ter- 
rible capital letters. Papa said they looked like 
Greek. Buz says that he reads things in the 
paper.” 

“It certainly must have been hard for your 
papa and mamma to leave you all,” said the old 
lady. “ I really think that’s enough water in the 
tub. I’d feel anxious if it was full up. It would 
be different if Kit and Buz were with you, for 
there’d be some one to holler if anything was to 
happen. Kow, honey, don’t you ever lock the 
door on yourself when you’re in the bath-room. 
It mightn’t be safe. After you’re through, come 
right back to the spare-room. The white dress 
you wore over here is spick and span and we 
won’t bother about opening your trunk until 
night. Did you know the gown you have on 
belonged to my little daughter who died ? ” 


70 Mrs, Pinner's Little Girl 

“ I thought it did,” said Mary. 

Who told you about her ? ” asked Mrs. Pin- 
ner, delaying at the bath-room door. 

“ Aunty.” 

“ The black woman over at your house ? What 
did she say ? ” 

“ She said that your little girl went to heaven 
when she was about as big as lam.” 

“ That’s right. The gown just fits you, doesn’t 
it, Mary ? ” 

The old lady’s eyes and the brown eyes of the 
demure little girl both sought the gown. There 
was no need for a verbal answer. To all appear- 
ances the gown was a perfect fit. 

“ Did the black woman tell you her name ? ” 
asked the old lady, raising her eyes from the 
gown to the sober little face. 

Mary shook her head. 

“ It was so long ago,” said Mrs. Pinner. “ I 
reckon the folks who didn’t love her would have 
to look at her stone to remember. Well, I’ll go 
away and let you take your bath, some other time 
I’ll tell you her name and all about her.” 



v . -... ; ?♦_■ ■■ /. •' • • ^■ 


J 


I 






> 



’>} 




,»r- 




V ^ 

I- A. * 






CHAPTER nr 
The Thunder-Storm 

If the water had been up to the top of the tub, 
and if Kit and Buz and the well-loved baby had 
been back there in the big spare-room tumbling 
over the bed, how delightful everything would 
have been ! 

“ Then we would go through the house,” said 
Mary to herself, ‘‘ and I would carry the baby.” 

An hour later she was going through the house, 
with Mr. Pinner on one side and Mrs. Pinner on 
the other. 

“ I want you to show her the picture, mother,” 
said Mr. Pinner, when they all reached the par- 
lor. He walked over to a window and drew up 
the blind. “ There, can you see ? ” 

“ I can see all right, father,” said Mrs. Pinner, 
gently, “ and young eyes are better than mine.” 

“ What do you see, Mary ? ” asked the old gen- 
tleman. 

“ I see a picture,” said Mary. 


74 


Mrs^ Pinner* s Little Girt 


“ A picture of what ? ’’ he asked gently. 

“ A picture of a little girl.” 

“ Do you see her plainly ? ” 

“ Yes, I see her very plainly.” 

“ Can you tell that her eyes are brown ? ” 

Mary looked attentively. ‘‘They’re painted 
brown,” she said. 

“ And her hair ? ” 

“ It’s painted brown, too.” 

“ Who do you think that little girl is ? ” 

“She knows,” said Mrs. Pinner, nodding sa- 
gaciously. 

“ Yes, I know,” said Mary, “ it’s Mrs. Pinner’s 
little girl.” 

“And Mr. Pinner’s, too,” said the old lady, 
softly. 

The old gentleman turned his eyes to the pic- 
ture on the wall. It looked blurred from where 
he stood. Then he gave his attention to the lit- 
tle girl gazing obediently at the painting. He 
could see very well that her hair was brown, and 
that it was curly. She was a slim little girl and 
tall, perhaps, for ten years. The other little girl 
had been very tall for nine. The little girl in the 
picture had gone out of the old house and left a 





xjs ITIrs. PinneR^s 



The Thunder-Storm 


75 


loneliness behind, even though the boy was frol- 
icking over the floor. The little girl looking at 
the picture had come to a quieter house than 
that. 

“ Tell her, mother,” he said, with a huskiness 
in his voice, “ that everything the other one was 
to have, she’s to have ; there’s to be no half 
measure about it. Tell her that she is Mrs. Pin- 
ner’s little girl.” 

The old lady laid her hand tenderly on the 
shapely brown head. 

‘‘ She’s Mr. Pinner’s little girl, too,” she said. 
“ Now, father, we had best show her her room.” 

Kit had said that Mary would have a beautiful 
room over at Mrs. Pinner’s, but Kit had never 
dreamed of such a very beautiful little room as 
the one to which Mr. and Mrs. Pinner led Mary. 
It was on the parlor floor and it had two doors 
and two windows. One of the doors opened into 
the back part of the front hall and the other door 
opened into the bed-chamber occupied by the old 
lady and gentleman. Outside the two windows 
you could see a blooming bed of roses and away 
off the spring-house with vines all over it. You 
could catch a glimpse of the near end of the two- 


76 Mrs. Hnne/s Little Girl 

mile meadow, and a stretch of woods. Inside 
the room there were many things to look at : a 
little chamber suit of white with painted roses 
trailing across the front of bureau and wash-stand 
and above the pillows, a little white rocking- 
chair, with roses on the back and seat, and a 
footstool with a crimson cover. There was a 
dainty couch and beautiful new rugs. If Buz 
had been standing in the doorway, he would have 
declared that Mary was a “ tween.” 

“ Father selected the furniture from a cata- 
logue,” said Mrs. Pinner, in high good humor, 
“and he ordered it shipped the same day. I 
never knew goods to get here so soon.” 

“I telegraphed the order,” explained Mr. 
Pinner. 

“And had them sent by express,” said the old 
lady. 

She gazed serenely about. “ The suit certainly 
does look well,” she said. “ I was afraid it was 
one of those things that show up so much prettier 
in the book. I always get so fooled on flowers.” 
She cast a swift glance out at the mass of bloom- 
ing roses. “ It seems to me that growing flowers 
are never half so pretty as they are in the books. 


The Thunder-Storm 77 

The bureau there shows up finer than it did in 
the catalogue. Mary, what do you think of your 
room ? ” 

“ What does she say ? ” asked Mr. Pinner, for 
the old gentleman was a little deaf and Mary’s 
answer was very low. 

“ She says she likes it,” cried Mrs. Pinner, 
cheerfully. “ I knew she would.” 

“And there’s her trunk,” said Mr. Pinner. 
“ My ! but that’s a big trunk.” He was laugh- 
ing, of course. “ Who’s going to do the unpack- 
ing, mother? Who’ll undertake such a tre- 
mendous job ? ” 

“ How don’t you be making fun of anybody’s 
trunk, Mr. Pinner,” said Mrs. Pinner. “Mary 
and I won’t have it, mind ! We’ll see to the 
unpacking of that trunk ourselves, and we’ll see 
to it right.” 

“ If the contents don’t fill up the little bureau 
drawers and the closet, we must see to filling 
them up,” said the old gentleman, generously. 

He had a way of thrusting his right hand into 
the pocket where he kept his pocketbook, and it 
seemed to little Mary Daingerfield as if he were 
always ready to spend money. 


78 Mrs^ Pinne/s Little Girl 

“ I’ll foot the bills,” he said, with a laugh. 

“Of course you will, father,” said Mrs. Pinner. 
“ If you hadn’t intended to be kind and generous 
you wouldn’t have had the right to fetch a little 
girl here to Hayfields. She takes her bath every 
day in the winter-time.” 

“ She does ! ” said Mr. Pinner. 

“Early in the morning in the winter-time,” 
explained the old lady. 

“ She does ! ” repeated the old gentleman. 

“ I hope that Mary will like the other piece of 
furniture that’s coming, father,” said Mrs. Pin- 
ner, “ and I hope it turns out as nice as the one 
we saw in the book.” 

“ I hope so, I hope so,” said Mr. Pinner. “ If 
it doesn’t come up to the mark, we’ll ship it 
back. It was bought on those conditions. I 
have come to the conclusion that that is the only 
sensible way to buy.” 

“ When do you think it will get here ? ” asked 
the old lady. 

“It will be here this week,” answered Mr. 
Pinner. “ If it isn’t I’ll know the reason why. 
Where will be the place to set it, mother ? ” 

“ Father, hush ! ” ordered Mrs. Pinner. “ You’ll 


The Thunder-Storm 


79 


have me telling right out what it is, and you 
know I don’t want to do it. I don’t want this 
little girl to know what it is till it gets here. If 
you and I are disappointed in it, there’s no need 
for her to be. We’ll find a place for it when it 
comes.” 

It might look well between the windows,” 
suggested Mr. Pinner. 

Mrs. Pinner shook her head. 

“ You’ll be telling what it is, yourself, father, 
if you keep on,” she said. “ Here is Mary look- 
ing between the windows wondering what will 
fit. Honey, a great many things will fit between 
the windows, a rocking-chair or a table or a 
couch. So many, indeed, that if I were you I 
wouldn’t trouble my brain about it ; I ’d make 
up my mind to wait and see what it is when it 
comes.” 

Yes, a great many things would fit between 
the windows, but Mary knew that the piece of 
furniture was not a rocking-chair or a table or a 
couch, for there was the rocking-chair and there 
was the table and there was the pretty little couch. 

“ Kit would guess a whole lot of things,” she 
said. 


8o 


Mrs^ Pinner s Little Girl 


“ What’s that ? ” cried Mr. Pinner. 

‘‘Nothing, father,” said Mrs. Pinner. “She’s 
just talking about the other little girl.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Mr. Pinner. “ What does she saj 
about the other little girl ? ” 

“ She says that the other little girl would guess 
a whole lot of things, that’s all. We had better 
go now ; she’s seen the room.” 

“ Ha, ha, ha ! ” laughed Mr. Pinner, “ so the 
other little girl would guess a whole lot of things ? 
I’ll be bound she would ! Now, look here, Mary, 
can’t you give a guess ? ” 

“ Mrs. Pinner doesn’t want me to,” said 
Mary. 

“ She’s just the best little girl that ever was,” 
said the old lady. “ No, honey, I don’t want you 
to guess. I think it’s a good way to spoil things. 
A body is apt to guess something that’s better 
than the real thing.” 

“ You said that she’d like this better than any- 
thing,” said Mr. Pinner. 

“ Well, I think she will,” said Mrs. Pinner, “if 
you don’t get her to hungering for something 
that’ll fit easier between the two windows.” 

“ If there’s anything she’d rather have, she can 


The Thunder-Storm 8i 

have it,” said Mr. Pinner. “ We’re not going to 
be stingy with her, mother.” 

“ He has never been stingy with anybody in 
his life, Mary,” said Mrs. Pinner, “ and it’s just 
the greatest wonder to folks the way he’s pros- 
pered. Most rich people are kind of close, you 
know.” 

“ Tut, tut, don’t be singing my praises, wife,” 
said Mr. Pinner. 

“ Well, you aren’t stingy anyway,” said Mrs. 
Pinner. 

“ That sounds more natural,” said Mr. Pinner. 
“ Your tone insinuates that there’s a whole lot of 
other things the matter with me. Little girl, do 
you see them ? ” 

“ Well, I know you aren’t religious,” said Mrs. 
Pinner, “ and there’s no use my pretending that 
you are.” 

Mrs. Pinner’s words, or her expression, which 
was grave and severe, set the old gentleman 
laughing. 

“ Shame on you, father ! ” cried the old lady, 
and to ask Mary such a question as that I Of 
course, she doesn’t see anything the matter with 
you.” 


82 


Mrs^ Pinner's Little Girl 


The beautiful day ended in a wild evening. A 
storm came up early, causing the trees in the 
woods to clash and crash, and then tore furiously 
along through the meadow. 

Mrs. Pinner did not relish a thunder-storm. 
The rain was needed for the crops, she said, but 
certainly there was no need for the thunder and 
the lightning. She had reproved Mr. Pinner for 
not being a religious man but she certainly did 
not talk like a religious woman. 

“ The lightning is terrible dangerous,” she de- 
clared, “but the thunder scares a bodj^ even 
more than the lightning. If I were a little bit of 
a woman, I dare say I’d be one of the kind that 
crawls in between two feather beds; but I’d 
smother if I’d attempt any such caper, and it 
would take a full team to pull me out.” 

“Mother, you’ll scare the child,” said Mr. 
Pinner. “ Mind how you talk.” 

“ I’m not afraid of thunder,” said Mary. “No 
one at our house is afraid of thunder but aunty.” 

“ You’re just scared at the lightning, then, are 
you ? ” asked Mrs. Pinner. 

“ Nobody at our house is afraid of the lightning 
either, except aunty,” said the little girl. 


The Thunder-Storm 83 

‘‘ Mary,’’ said Mrs. Pinner, “ you’re living here 
now, and you can’t boast like that. Mr. Pinner 
is fearful lest all the cattle will be struck and the 
barn’ll go, and as for me my limbs are fairly 
trembling under me. That’s the way it fares 
with the folks in your house. In the kitchen 
things are no better : the women have their 
aprons over their heads, I’m mortal certain, and 
the black boy is hid in the closet.” 

“ I meant at mamma’s house,” said Mary, and 
her lips began to quiver. 

“ Come here and sit on my lap,” ordered Mrs. 
Pinner, “ and for gracious sake, don’t cry ! My 
heart’s in a frightful palpitation.” 

“ I would think of something else if I were 
you,” advised Mary. 

‘‘ Wait till you go to school,” said the old 
lady, “wait till you study philosophy. After 
that you will never think of anything but the 
thunder-storm itself when it’s raging. I was 
pleased to death when I read about fixing up a 
little stool with glass feet, the glass being a non- 
conductor. And there was to be a chair with 
the same kind of feet. I thought it would be 
grand. You were to occupy the chair and hold 


Mrs. Pinne/s Little Girl 


84 

your feet on the stool, and have the two of them 
in the middle of the floor. I studied that 
paragraph over and over and I said to the girl 
next to me that I was going to buy myself a 
chair and a stool as soon as I got home, and be 
comfortable during storms all the rest of my 
life.” 

“Couldn’t you do it?” asked Mary. 
“Wouldn’t your father buy you the stool 
and the chair ? ” 

“ Mother,” said Mr. Pinner, “ please don’t tell 
the child the rest of that story.” 

But Mrs. Pinner kept steadily on. “There 
was another paragraph to the lesson,” she said, 
“ and the truth of it sank into my soul though I 
was only fourteen years old. You can seat 
yourself on a chair, Mary, with the glass at the 
end of the legs and you can put your feet on the 
stool also finished off with the non-conductors ; 
you can take up your position in the middle of 
the floor, and for all that the lightning may 
come and strike you dead.” 

“ Can you see the cattle, mother ? ” asked Mr. 
Pinner, anxious to change the subject. 

“ I’m not looking,” returned Mrs. Pinner. 


The Thunder-Storm 85 

“ IVe got this little girl to take care of. Honey, 
do you mean to say that you would go there to 
the window and look out and not be afraid of 
either the thunder or the lightning ? ” 

“ I would not be afraid,” said Mary, and it 
seemed to her all of a sudden that she was a very 
brave little girl. 

“ Then you go and look while I shut my eyes,” 
said the old lady, “ for the lightning is certainly 
something fearful. You tell Mr. Pinner if you 
see the cattle. Is all the young stock down in 
the meadow, father ? ” 

“ All but the two colts,” said the old gentle- 
man, “ and I don’t know that they’re any better 
off. They’re in the back pasture, under the 
walnuts, of course.” 

“ And the walnuts are high and will be sure to 
attract,” said Mrs. Pinner, dismally. 

Mary went across to the window. From the 
sitting-room also one had a view of the near 
end of the two-mile meadow. 

“ I see something,” said the little girl. 

Father, she sees something,” said Mrs. Pinner. 

“What do you think it is?” inquired Mr. 
Pinner. 


86 


Mrs^ Pinner* s Little Girl 


“ I think it is a horse,” said Mary, “ but maybe 
it might be a cow. It’s running.” 

“ Toward the barn ? ” asked Mr. Pinner, ex- 
citedly. “ Does it look as if it would like to get 
through the gate ? Mother, I’ve a mind to go 
out and open that gate. It’s a shame for the 
men to act the way they do during a storm.” 

“ They can’t help it,” said Mrs. Pinner. 
“ They’re human beings if they are black, and I 
know what it is to be frightened. Father, don’t 
you dare to stir out of this house unless you want 
me to die on the spot. If you come near you 
can hear my heart thumping.” 

Thunder rolled along the heavens, a frightful 
clap broke above the barn, and lightning flashed 
through the sitting-room. 

‘‘Mary, don’t stay at the window,” said Mr. 
Pinner. “I cannot help it if every head of 
cattle on the place is killed. I am too old to 
see to things and that’s a fact.” 

The storm lasted for several hours and no one 
retired until it was really over. Mary was very 
tired and sleepy when finally she lay down in 
the little painted bed. 

After awhile, however, she grew wide awake. 


The Thunder-Storm 87 

She had never before slept in a room by herself 
and she experienced an odd feeling of loneli- 
ness and desolation. Suddenly she heard a 
strange noise. It was not a noise that had 
anything to do with the storm, for the storm was 
over; indeed, the moonlight was streaming in 
through the two windows, soft and beautiful, 
just as it had flooded the room at Willowbrook 
such a little time before. The little girl peeped 
out toward the door leading into the room occu- 
pied by Mr. and Mrs. Pinner, and then she real- 
ized what the noise was. It was a sort of com- 
mingling of two sounds and one of them she 
knew ; she had become familiar with it in the 
afternoon when she rested in the spare-room 
up-stairs. The other was similar and yet differ- 
ent. Little Mary, listening, could not tell which 
snored the louder, Mr. or Mrs. Pinner. 

The startled sensation left her, but the desire 
for sleep had also gone. She lay speculating as to 
what her life would be here at Hayfields as Mrs. 
Pinner’s little girl. 












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CHAPTER V 
A Surprise 

The piece of furniture that arrived at Hay- 
fields on Saturday was a beautiful little cherry 
desk. It was unboxed on the kitchen porch and 
Mary Daingerfield forgot everything else when 
she saw it. 

“ There ! the child is pleased ! ” cried the old 
lady, enthusiastically. “Look at her dimples, 
father ! How, I can say right out what I didn’t 
dare to say the other day. The desk can’t set 
between the windows because the light wouldn’t 
fall on it good. You just scared me awful, 
father, when you kept on talking about it setting 
between the windows, I was so afraid I would 
say something about the light not falling on it 
good. Dave was always such a hand about the 
light, you remember ? ” 

Mr. Pinner gave a grunt. He was far more 
interested in the cherry desk than in reminiscences 
of Dave. It was a big undertaking, that of taking 


92 Mrs* Pintle/ s Little Girl 

the little desk into Mary’s room and establishing 
it in a proper position. First, it had to be car- 
ried very carefully and for this purpose the 
colored boy was ordered to take hold of one end 
while Mr. Pinner essayed the other ; but the old 
lady interrupted the proceeding. 

“You just step away, father,” she said, “you’re 
flurried already. Let Liza help Job.” 

Liza was summoned. She stood petrifled in 
admiration, then found her voice and cried out, 
“ Laws ! but ain’t it putty ! ” 

After that Mr. Pinner gave orders to Liza and 
Job all the way through the sitting-room and out 
in the back of the front hall, and the orders grew 
imperative as Liza and Job and the cherry desk 
for an instant seemed to be wedged in the door- 
way of Mary’s room. Ten minutes later the 
wash-stand belonging to the painted suit occupied 
the space between the windows and the desk 
showed to advantage in the light that flooded it 
where the wash-stand had been. 

“ ITow,” said Mrs. Pinner’s satisfied voice, “ she 
can put her diary in the big drawer. I will fill 
up her little ink-bottles, and whenever she wants, 
she can come here and do her writing.” 


A Surprise 93 

That night Mary made this entry in her diary : 

“ Mr. and Mrs. Pinner have given me a beauti- 
ful cherry desk. It has pigeon-holes in it and a 
lovely bronze ink-stand. There is a pen with a 
pearl handle and it looks lovely beside my ebony 
handled pen that papa gave me. I never saw so 
much writing paper in my life, and there is a 
stamp box with stamps in it. Liza and Job car- 
ried the desk from the back porch. They had an 
awful time getting it through the door, and Mr. 
and Mrs. Pinner almost quarreled as to where it 
should be set. 

“ I ought to be a very happy girl, but I am 
still sorry that I was given away. People’s 
children ought to live together till they are 
grown. 

“ Mr. Pinner says that he was not cheated in 
the desk, but I am afraid my ‘ thank you ’ did 
not quite satisfy either him or Mrs. Pinner. I 
believe they expected me to kiss them, or, at 
least, to kiss Mrs. Pinner. Kit would have 
done it.” 

The next time it rained at Hay fields there was 
no thunder and lightning, but it was a cold, mis- 
erable rain. The old house became so damp that 


94 


Mrs^ Pinner s Little Girl 


Mrs. Pinner ordered Job to light a fire on the 
sitting-room hearth. Notwithstanding the in- 
clement weather, Mr. Pinner was out somewhere 
on business. At eight o’clock he had not re- 
turned. 

Perhaps if Mrs. Pinner had not insisted upon 
treating Mary as if she were a little bit of a girl 
they might have learned to know each other 
sooner. It seemed to Mary that her legs were 
very long whenever she sat on Mrs. Pinner’s lap. 
Mrs. Pinner took her on her lap that evening. 
The old lady was sitting in a tall, straight chair 
in front of the fire ; it was one of her boasts that 
she seldom occupied a rocking-chair, never, at 
home. Aunty over at Willowbrook had been in 
the habit of holding her little Miss Mary on her 
lap as she rocked in her uncomfortable green 
chair or sat stock-still on the floor. Little Miss 
Mary was glad even of the remembrance of the 
warmth and welcome of aunty’s arms and she 
decided that it was only when you were strange 
that your legs felt long. 

“ You and I are going to have a nice little talk 
right here before the fire while poor old father’s 
out in the weather,” said the old lady. “ First 


A Surprise 95 

thing I want you to guess something, I want 
you to guess her name.” 

“ I think her name was Mary,” answered the 
little girl, softly. 

“ Bless you, that’s right ! ” said Mrs. Pinner, 
and she gave little Mary Daingerfield a big kiss 
on the forehead. 

“Father and I couldn’t utter that name for 
many and many a day,” Mrs. Pinner continued, 
“ and it ’most broke our hearts when the boy 
would ask after ‘ Mary.’ Maybe she wasn’t quite 
as pretty as you, and maybe the artist painted 
her up prettier than she really was but she had 
brown eyes and brown hair. Why, when I heard 
that little fat boy calling you ‘ Mary,’ in a whis- 
per, I couldn’t take a bit of stock in the other 
little girl who was showing off close up to me, 
all I wanted was to see your eyes for I was look- 
ing at your little brown head. Father and I 
thought our little girl was the prettiest thing 
that ever lived. We thought she was pretty 
when she was dressed in her white frock and we 
thought she was pretty when she insisted on 
going barefooted like Dave. Dave was so much 
younger that he and Mary hardly ever played 


96 Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 

together ; indeed some said that Mary was jeal- 
ous of Dave from the start ; we^d made so much 
of her. Anyway, she didn’t want Dave to get 
ahead of her in anything, even to going bare- 
footed. But play I She played all day ; she was 
used to playing before Dave arrived. When she 
found nothing else to do, she’d slide down the 
banisters.” 

“ Kit slides down the banisters,” said Mary. 

“ I am sure she does ! ” cried Mrs. Pinner, ap- 
preciatively. “ Didn’t you slide down the banis- 
ters when you were home ? ” 

“ Once,” acknowledged the demure little girl, 
“ but I didn’t slide down straddle, and papa said 
it was dangerous that way and I mustn’t do it 
again. I suppose it was dangerous; but I can 
ride horseback.” 

“You can cried Mrs. Pinner. “Where in 
the world did you ever learn to ride horseback ? ” 

“ Papa had a horse out from Washington last 
summer,” answered Mary, proudly, “and Kit 
and Buz and I all rode horseback. Kit rode 
straddle.” 

“ I’ll warrant she did ! ” cried Mrs. Pinner. 

After that the old lady talked for a long time 


97 


A Surprise 

about the little brown-eyed Mary Pinner, and 
the demure little girl fell to admiring the nar- 
rator. She concluded that the old lady had a 
wonderful mind to remember all those things that 
she was telling about, the very way that Mary 
Pinner looked when she said this, the very way 
that she tossed her head when she said that, the 
dresses that she wore, the slippers and the hoops, 
and it was all so long ago, for Mrs. Pinner said 
at the beginning, “My little girl, Mary, was 
born, lived, and died before your papa and 
mamma came into the world.” 

“ You must be very sorry that she isn’t here 
now, Mrs. Pinner,” said Mary, at the termina- 
tion of the story. My! the ecstasy of Mary 
Pinner over the little white chamber suit painted 
with roses ! My ! how she would have capered 
and clapped her hands at the sight of the little 
cherry desk ! 

“ Mary,” said the old lady, “ I don’t want you 
to call me Mrs. Pinner.” 

At this Mary’s heart cried out, “ I won’t call 
you mamma.” 

“And I don’t want you to call father Mr. 
Pinner.” 


gS Mrs. Pinner^s Little Girl 

“ I won’t call him papa,” cried Mary’s heart, 
but the little girl was sitting meekly on Mrs. 
Pinner’s lap and her legs felt very, very long. 

“In the law,” said Mrs. Pinner, “you are 
ours.” 

“ In the law ? ” whispered Mary. 

“ Yes,” said the old lady, “ but I reckon you 
don’t know anything about the law in such mat- 
ters. Well, I’ve told you all about our other lit' 
tie girl, now I’ll talk some about this one here in 
my lap. When father and I decided that we just 
couldn’t stand the loneliness of the place any 
longer, that we could and would get a little girl, 
we agreed that we would do the right thing by 
her, we would adopt her according to the law and 
give her a daughter’s portion. ‘ There are to be 
no half measures,’ father said, and he’s not going 
to go back on his word. But finding the right 
kind of a little girl was the trouble. We wanted 
one that we could be proud of as well as love. 

“ When we heard of the death of your father 
and mother and understood how things were, we 
wrote a letter to Miss Daingerfield asking if we 
might adopt one of the children. I never saw a 
man in as big a hurry as father was to get over 


99 


A Surprise 

to Willow brook after we received your cousin’s 
answer to that letter. When we went to your 
house and heard your name and saw what size 
you were and knew that you were really and 
truly going to belong to us — well, we were two 
happy old people, that’s all, and Mr. Pinner was 
lively through the whole hot drive back to Hay- 
fields. But we said that we wouldn’t change 
your name to Pinner, you should still be Mary 
Daingerfield.” 

“ Oh, yes 1 ” cried Mary, in a startled voice. 

‘‘ I’m glad that you’re a Daingerfield,” con- 
tinued Mrs. Pinner, complacently. “ I’m a great 
person to appreciate good, blue blood. No, you 
shan’t be named Pinner, Dave will have to keep 
that all to himself. I’m glad that you’re a little 
Daughter of the Kevolution, Mary.” 

“ I’m not your child, in the law, am I ? ” asked 
Mary, anxiously. 

Mrs. Pinner laughed. “ I reckon you’re just 
Mrs. Pinner’s little girl,” she said. 

“ I knew I was a Daughter of the Kevolution,” 
said Mary, “ but when I am a lady I will have to 
be enrolled, won’t I ? ” 

‘‘Yes,” said Mrs. Pinner, cheerfully, ‘‘and pay 


i. OF a 


loo Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 

your fees. You’ll have no trouble paying your 
fees, Mary, or traveling off to the meetings. 
You’re to have a daughter’s part of the Pinner 
estate.” 

Kit would have cried out, “ Am I ? ” and 
clapped her hands, and then demanded the mean- 
ing of a daughter’s part and of the Pinner estate, 
and been disappointed if she wasn’t to inherit a 
million dollars. Kit wanted to be worth a mil- 
lion dollars before she died. Kit’s sister, Mary, 
did not utter a word of thanks. 

“ I am not going to ask you to call Mr. Pinner, 
papa, and me, mamma,” Mrs. Pinner went on. 
‘‘ It would be hard to do, I know, and besides 
we’re too old to be wanting it. I am going to 
ask you to try to call Mr. Pinner, grandpa, and to 
call me, grandma. Will you, honey ? ” 

“ I will try,” said Mary. 

‘‘ That’s right,” said the old lady, “ that’s right. 
You try and you’ll get on first-rate. I wonder 
if you’d like to hear another story yet to-night 
or if you’d rather go to bed. I know something 
about three little children named Kit and Buz 
and the baby. Would you like to hear it ? ” 

The little girl on Mrs. Pinner’s lap forgot that 


A Surprise loi 

her legs were long. She lifted her expressive 
face to Mrs. Pinner’s, she showed her dimples 
and her eyes grew dark and big. 

“ Tell me about them,” she cried. “ Have they 
been given away too ? Where’s Kit ? Where’s 
Buz ? Where’s the baby ? ” 

“ I knew that somebody had a little life in her 
somewheres,” said Mrs. Pinner. “ I knew some- 
body knew how to stir around on a person’s lap. 
Kit and Buz and the baby are all right. I can 
tell you where they are but I don’t know whether 
you’ll know all the places. When you children 
rode that old horse that your father brought out 
from town last summer, how far did you go ? ” 

Why did Mrs. Pinner say that “ old ” horse ? 

“ It went fast,” said Mary. 

“ Did you ever ride down the crossroad to a 
white gate with red posts and trimmings ? It’s 
on this side the woods.” 

“ Was there a bird-box on a pole in a field ? ” 
asked the little girl. 

“That’s the place. You can see the house 
plainly from the gate.” 

“ Is the house painted yellow ? ” asked Mary, 
faintly. 


102 Mrs* Pinner's Little Girl 

“ With blue trimmings, yes,” said Mrs. Pinner. 

I wonder how they came to have the gate white 
and red ! Well, Kit’s in there.” 

The big dark eyes were hot by this time. 

“ Where is Buz ? ” 

“You ain’t mad because Kit’s in the yellow 
house ? ” inquired the old lady. 

“Mr. Johnny Jones and his wife live there,” 
said Mary, evasively. 

“ Yes, and they’ve been wanting a child this 
long time. Where do you think Buz is? Buz 
is on the other side of the woods. I know the 
old horse never got you any further than the 
bird-house. Buz lives in a pretty little white 
cottage with old Mr. Harrington and his sister. 
They’re nice people.” 

Little Mary’s heart was full. Aunty had said 
that she hoped Buz would be given away far ofiF 
from Kit and that he would not be given to any 
old particular people. And now to think that 
Kit and Buz were to live in houses separated 
only by a woods, a beautiful woods in which to 
play, with chestnut-trees grown up from the 
roots, forming regular playhouses. And worse 
than all Buz had been given away to two old 


A Surprise 103 

particular people. No, the horse from Washing- 
ton had never carried his burden beyond the 
bird-house on the pole, but often and often the 
three children on the old horse had met Mr. 
Harrington and his sister. Miss Jane, driving 
slowly along in their rockaway. 

“ Where’s the baby ? ” asked Mary. 

“ They all went off like hot cakes after we got 
you,” said Mrs. Pinner. “They’ve taken the 
baby at the post-office.” 

“Those people who live behind the post- 
office ? ” asked Mary, and in her voice was doubt 
mingled wdth indignation. 

“ They’ll be good to it,” said Mrs. Pinner. 
“ When folks want a baby as bad as the Wilsons 
they’re not going to let it lack attention.” 

When Mary inquired about her Cousin Cyn- 
thia, Mrs. Pinner said : 

“ She’s gone back to Boston and I’m glad of 
it. After teaching all the winter-time she cer- 
tainly needs a rest in the warm weather. I 
don’t know when I ever met any one that 
pleased me better than your Cousin Cynthia. 
She’s got such ladylike manners.” 

It was nine by the sitting-ro^jra clock when 


104 Pinner's Little Girl 

Mr. Pinner came home. He brought with him 
a queer-looking letter addressed to Miss Mary 
Daingerfield, care of Mrs. Pinner. The old 
gentleman was very much pleased that Mary 
should receive a letter. 

“ She can answer it at her desk, can’t she, 
mother ? ” he said. 

‘‘Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Pinner, “but she 
must wait till to-morrow. Would you like to 
read your letter here or carry it to your own 
room, Mary ? ” 

“I should like to read it in my own room,” 
answered Mary. 

“ I would see who it is from while I was out 
here,” said Mr. Pinner, regarding the letter with 
a great deal of curiosity. 

Kit would have torn the letter open as soon as 
it was handed to her, but then it would have 
been Kit’s first letter. After Kit had torn the 
letter open she would have asked Mrs. Pinner to 
read it for her. Instinctively Mary knew that 
the proceedings of Kit under the circumstances 
would have delighted both Mr. and Mrs. Pinner. 

“ Tell father who it’s from,” pleaded the old 
lady. 


A Surprise 105 

The little girl obediently opened the letter and 
looked at the signature. 

“ It’s from aunty,” she said, and turned away 
to go to her room. At the sitting-room door 
she looked back and shyly called, “ Good-night ! ” 

In her little room Mary opened the letter 
again, spread it before her on the cherry desk 
and read : 

“Dear little Miss Mary: 

“ I take my pen in hand to let you know 
that I am well and that Kit and Buz and the 
baby have all been give away. Your cozin, Miss 
Cynthy Daingerfield, was in a big bury to git 
back to Bostun, and she give Kit and Buz and 
the baby away to the fust pussons that asked 
fer them. She give Kit to the wust pusson in 
the world to rase a chile, up to the yaller house 
to that Mrs. Jonny Jones what wears flowers 
and fethers in her hat at the same time. Kit 
won’t never lern no maners in the yaller house 
and she and Buz will be mighty close togedder. 
She give Buz to old Mr. Harrington to carry up 
to Miss Jane. She give the baby to the people 
back of the post-office. Mark my words there is 

f oing to be trubble tween the yaller house and 
[iss Jane Harrington. If I hed hed any say in 
the matter I certinly would have kept pore Buz 
from being give way to two sech old perticlar 
peple. 

“ Kespect in haste, 

“Aunty.” 


io6 Mrs. Hnner^s Little Girl 

Mary’s elbows sought the desk, she hid her face 
in her hands. The words ‘‘ poor Buz ” were 
wringing the affectionate little heart. 

“ Is she crying ? ” whispered Mr. Pinner at the 
door. 

“ Let her be,” whispered Mrs. Pinner. “ Some 
things take time.” 






CHAPTER VI 
Aunty's Letter 

On Sunday morning Mrs. Pinner’s little girl 
went into her room directly after breakfast, for, 
of course, she thought that the carriage and the 
two horses would be ready to take them all to 
church. True, Mrs. Pinner had said that Mr. 
Pinner was not a religious man, but although 
Mary Daingerfield was only ten years old she was 
quite aware that a great many men who are not 
religious go to church on Sunday. She was a 
little surprised that the old lady had not told her 
what dress to wear, but she was rather pleased to 
have it so. Already she was beginning to take 
pleasure in the small measure of responsibility, 
unconsciously perhaps, imposed upon her. 

She went into her room and closed the door 
carefully behind her. More than once she had 
heard Mr. and Mrs. Pinner laughing when she 
closed the door, but she told herself that she must 
not mind when they laughed ; they did not mean 


no 


Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 


anything by it. She had not yet succeeded in 
calling these two kind old people “ grandpa ” and 
“ grandma ” though she said the words over to 
herself at night and tried her best to speak them 
out courageously in the daytime, but she no lon- 
ger called them Mr. and Mrs. Pinner except in 
her thoughts. 

Mrs. Pinner had noticed the omission and 
nodded her head at the old gentleman. 

“ The other will come after a while,” she said. 
“ IPs something not to be Mr. and Mrs. Pinner.” 

“ It certainly is something not to be ‘ Mr. 
Pinner,’ ” said Mr. Pinner ; “ it certainly is.” 

“ And I’m glad and thankful not to be ‘ Mrs. 
Pinner,’ I reckon I am,” said the old lady, shak- 
ing all over in her mirth. 

Mary opened the closet door and meditated as 
to what dress she should wear. There was a new 
dress hanging among the others, “ a gift from 
grandma.” It was white and trimmed with very 
pretty lace. She would put on this dress and sur- 
prise and please Mrs. Pinner, for it did seem that 
whenever she could, she certainly ought to try to 
give the old lady pleasure. 

Mrs. Pinner had helped her to unpack the lit- 


Ill 


Auniy^s Letter 

tie trunk that first evening of the day of her ar- 
rival. Was it only a few days ago ? Incredible I 
Mary had to stand on a chair to reach the closet 
hooks. She took out the new dress carefully, 
dismounted, and laid it on the bed, then she got 
upon the chair again to take down a skirt. 

She laid hold of a flannel skirt by mistake and 
said to herself that she was glad people did not 
wear flannel skirts in warm weather like they 
used to do when Mary Pinner was a little girl, 
but the flannel skirt was assertive, it fell off the 
hook and was on top of the white skirt when 
Mary stepped off the chair. 

She placed the desired article on the bed be- 
side the white dress and stood there in the middle 
of the pretty room, looking down at that little 
flannel skirt. It was not hers, it belonged to Kit 
and Kit was living in the yellow house with the 
Joneses. A great hunger came into her heart to 
see Kit and Buz and the baby ; she wanted to see 
them more even than she wanted to go to 
church. She knew from what she had heard Mr. 
and Mrs. Pinner say that they considered it wise 
for her to remain away from her little sister and 
Buz and the baby until all of them were used to 


112 


Mrs. Pinner s Little Girt 


their new homes. It would be no use to ask 
either Mr. or Mrs. Pinner to take her visiting, but 
Kit ought to have her flannel skirt. 

“ Kit ought to have her flannel skirt,” she said 
to herself, quite gravely. “ Suppose it should 
turn cold like it did the other day ? Kit has only 
two flannel skirts and she’d have to change.” 

The yellow house was about four miles away 
and the church three in a different direction. It 
was such a warm day that she felt sure that Kit 
would not be at church. 

“ If it were nice and cool Kit would make the 
Joneses take her to church,” she said. 

But even if the morning had been cool, Mary 
Daingerfleld had too much respect for the Lord’s 
Day to think of taking Kit’s flannel skirt to 
church. The people would be wondering what 
she had in her bundle. If she were to see Kit, 
however, she would tell her that she had her skirt 
and Kit would ask the Joneses to bring her over 
to get it. She would tell Kit to stop for Buz and 
to go down to the post-office and get the baby, 
and Kit would make the Joneses do it. 

Disconsolately she regarded the little skirt. 
Ko, Kit would not be at church ; very probably 


Aunty's Letter 113 

she would be home in the Joneses’ yard, running 
barefooted. The Joneses were not the right kind 
of people to bring up a child. 

All that Mary could do was to make up her 
mind to say a prayer in the church, asking God 
please to manage in some way to let her see her 
sister. 

Mr. and Mrs. Pinner were sitting on the side 
porch while Mary was making her preparations 
for church, and they both looked up in astonish- 
ment when she appeared before them, wearing 
her new dress. She had on her best hat and 
gloves, and was all ready to start, with the ex- 
ception of the fastening of her waist. She gave 
a queer little smile in compliment to the new 
dress and backed up to the old lady with a peti- 
tion that she button it. 

“ To be sure,” said Mrs. Pinner, and she fastened 
the dress. 

“ Where did you think of going this morning, 
honey?” she asked, after duly admiring the 
dress. “Mr. Pinner, I believe you have prom- 
ised to carry her somewhere and have forgotten 
it.” 

The old gentleman looked perplexed and sorry. 




114 Pinne/s Little Girl 

“ Did I promise to carry you anywhere, Mary ? ” 
he asked. 

“Ko,” said Mary, “but how do we go to 
church ? ” 

At this Mr. and Mrs. Pinner laughed so heartily 
that the cook put her head around the corner of 
the house to see what was the matter and kept it 
there, grinning broadly. 

“Somebody doesn’t half like us to laugh, 
father,” said Mrs. Pinner, wiping her perspiring 
brow, “ and certainly ’tis a shame.” 

Mr. Pinner ceased laughing, but there was a 
twinkle in his eye when he said: “We walk to 
church, Mary.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Mary. 

Then it came to her that they must walk to 
church through the two-mile meadow, along by 
the water, under the trees. But Mr. and Mrs. 
Pinner were not dressed for church, and why had 
they laughed ? 

“Mary,” said the old lady, “don’t you mind 
father’s fun. Nobody at Hayfields ever walks to 
church. Father, confess, tell the child that you 
don’t belong to her church.” 

“ Oh I ” and Mary’s cheeks grew red. 


Aunty's Letter 115 

“ Suppose I confess that I’m a Dunkard, Mary,” 
said Mr. Pinner. “ What will you say to that ? ” 

“Father, quit making fun of the Dunkard re- 
ligion,” said Mrs. Pinner. “Somebody is as 
sharp as you please. He’s an old man, Mary, 
isn’t he, not to belong to any church ? ” 

The be-flowered hat nodded. 

“ What do you think of mother there belong- 
ing to the Big Church?” inquired Mr. Pinner, 
crossing his legs and preparing to enjoy himself. 

“ I don’t know where the Big Church is,” said 
Mary. 

“It’s everywhere,” explained Mr. Pinner. 
“ It’s here on the porch ; it’s down yonder in the 
meadow. You don’t have to dress to go to it, 
and you don’t have to stir a step to reach it. 
The horses can rest in the pasture and be glad on 
Sunday if the folks at the house belong to the 
Big Church.” 

“ I can walk to the little church,” said Mary, 
“ if you will show me the way.” 

“ You dear little soul ! ” cried Mrs. Pinner. 
“Father, don’t tease her any more this day. 
She’d start out to walk to her church ! ” 

And the glory of the Big Church was all about 


ii6 Mrs, Pinner's Little Girl 

the little drooping head in the flower- bedecked 
hat. 

Mr. Pinner looked at his watch. 

“ It’s too late,” he said, in a tone of relief, 
“ but next Sunday if she fixes herself like that 
I’ll have a horse harnessed to the buggy and 
drive her to church. Don’t you forget to re- 
mind me, mother.” 

*‘’T would be a shame to forget,” said Mrs. 
Pinner. 

The little girl in the new dress understood 
matters perfectly by this time. Her eyes grate- 
ful and pitiful looked from one of the kind peo- 
ple to the other. Mr. Pinner was indeed very 
old not to belong to any church, and Mrs. Pinner 
was old too. 

‘‘ I will be glad if you will take me next Sun- 
day,” she said, ‘‘ for I think a little church does 
a person more good.” 

“ You’ve just got to carry her to church after 
that, father,” said Mrs. Pinner. 

Then Mary returned to her room and divested 
herself of her white dress. She found a piece of 
brown paper in the bottom of the closet and 
wrapped up Kit’s flannel skirt, and after she had 


Aunty's Letter 117 

done this she knelt at the foot of her bed and 
said the little prayer that she had intended to 
say in the church. 

The following Sunday it was raining and the 
old lady said that they would all have to be satis- 
fied with the Big Church. Thursday brought a 
second letter to Mary. 

The little girl had answered aunty’s letter 
promptly and she was pleased to hear from her 
again, for as soon as Mr. Pinner said, “ Here’s 
a letter for somebody,” she was sure it was a let- 
ter from aunty. 

The old gentleman had recognized the hand- 
writing. “ It’s from the black woman,” he said, 
nodding at Mrs. Pinner. 

“ If the black woman keeps that little thing 
homesick she must quit writing,” Mary heard 
Mrs. Pinner say as she fied to her room to read 
the letter. 

Before reading the whole of that letter Mary 
understood that aunty was homesick too. 

“ Dear little Miss Mary,” the letter ran, “ I 
take my pen in hand to let you know that I am 
well and that I is now ’gaged in takin’ in 
wash in’ fer a livin’. I ’most broke my back 


ii8 Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 

yisday over the wash-tub. I will never fine a 
plase out at servus to suit me. I lived with your 
mamma all her life and nussed her when she 
were a baby, and I nussed you alls, but I will 
never fine anudder servus plase to suit me. Day 
before yisday I seen Kit and Buz in the big road 
near the yaller house. Buz was lookin’ nice and 
tidy. I speck it’s hard for him to keep hisself 
like that. Kit had cut her hand and sech a rag 
as was tied round it make me sick to think of. 
Them Jonses ain’t the right kind of people to 
bring up a chile like Kit. I write this letter 
speshually to tell you about your sister’s hand 
tied up in sech a rag and to ’mind you of them 
lessons we used to have last winter in Willow- 
brook. You was a very good teacher. I seen 
the baby one day. It is hotter back of the post- 
ofiice than enywhere I know of. I know you 
will wurry a heap ’bout Kit’s hand and to think 
how hard it must be for pore Buz to keep hisself 
so spick and span. He oughta have on his ova- 
hauls and tumble in the grass. Your papa say a 
boy like Buz better ’most live in his ovahauls. 
Perhaps you will wurry some to ’bout your pore 
old black aunty turned out in the cold world to 
breck her back over the wash-tub for a livin’, but 
I can’t find a servus plase to suit. You has a 
sensible haid and a kind hart like your mamma, 
your papa say so and he wasn’t one to brag and 
bluster. 

“ Kespect in haste, 

“ Auhty.” 

Mary felt certain that aunty had written the 


119 


Aunty's Letter 

letter very slowly, possibly late in the night, for 
aunty never did care what time she got to bed. 
While she had honorably discharged her duty as 
teacher, Mary had not been able to prevail upon 
the old woman to begin a letter in any other 
manner than “ I take my pen in hand to let you 
know that I am well,” or to terminate it with 
other words than “ Eespect in haste.” 

“ I must see Kit and Buz,” said the little girl, 
“ and I must see the baby.” 

Yet if the letter made her homesick the black 
woman was to quit writing, that was Avhat Mrs. 
Pinner said. She did not dare to think further, 
she rushed right out into the sitting-room. 

“ Kit’s cut her hand,” she cried. 

What’s that ? ” asked Mr. Pinner. 

Mrs. Pinner looked concerned. 

“ The other little girl has cut her hand, father,” 
she explained. “ Honey, I hope she didn’t cut it 
deep.” 

“ I don’t know,” said Mary. “ It’s got an old 
dirty rag on it. I want to see my sister.” 

The tears came then. 

“ Honey, come here,” said Mrs. Pinner. 

“ She won’t let Buz wear his overalls,” sobbed 


120 


Mrs* Pinner^ s Little Girl 


the little girl while the old lady’s arms closed 
tenderly about her, “and papa said that Buz 
was the kind of boy to wear overalls all the 
time.” 

Mr. Pinner drew up his chair. 

“ What about the little boy ? ” he asked. 

“ Miss Jane won’t let him wear his overalls,” 
answered Mrs. Pinner. 

“ That’s a shame,” said the old gentleman. 
“Buz ought to wear his overalls if he wants 
to.” 

“ I want to see my brother,” wailed Mary. 

“ Pet her nice, mother, she feels bad,” said Mr. 
Pinner. 

“Did the black woman write you all that, 
Mary ? ” asked Mrs. Pinner. “ She must be 
pretty smart to write it so you could read.” 

“ I taught aunty to write a letter,” said 
Mary. 

“ Father, listen ! ” cried Mrs. Pinner, in admi- 
ration, “ this little girl taught the black woman 
to write a letter. Think of that ! ” 

“ Well, well, well ! ” said Mr. Pinner. 

“ I want to see aunty ! ” wailed Mary. 

“ Father,” said Mrs. Pinner, “ you tell her the 


121 


Aunty's Letter 

story about the two little calves. She’s quiet 
now, and she’s going to lie here and listen.” 

“ Once there were two little calves out in the 
barnyard,” said Mr. Pinner. “ One of them was 
white and one of them was red. They had both 
been taken away from the old cows who lived 
down yonder in the meadow. They bawled all 
the day that they were taken away from the old 
cows and they bawled all the night, and the cows 
down in the meadow bawled too. The next 
morning the little white calf got out of the barn- 
yard,, made its way to the meadow and found its 
mother. It was collared that evening and brought 
back. Well, it stood there in the barnyard bawl- 
ing while the little red calf switched its tail and 
drank its milk like an old cow. Ever so many 
times after that did the little white calf contrive 
to get out of the barnyard and go to its mother, 
and by so doing kept itself in a continual state 
of bawling and the old mother-cow mooing for 
weeks. But the little red calf stayed right close 
to the spot where it was fed, and both it and its 
mother were tranquil and happy. 

“Now if you stay right still here with mother 
and me,” said Mr. Pinner, at the conclusion of 


122 Mrs^ Pinner" s Little Girl 

the story, ‘‘Kit and Buz and the baby will be 
contented and happy, and in a very little while 
you will be contented and happy, too, just like 
the little red calf ; but if you break out of Hay- 
fields and run over to the yellow house and to 
the cottage and down to the post-olRce, Kit and 
Buz and the baby will all get to bawling, and 
you will get to bawling too, like the little white 
calf. You don’t want to make things hard for 
Kit and Buz and the baby, do you ? ” 

‘‘ Of course she doesn’t,” said Mrs. Pinner. 

But Mr. and Mrs. Pinner did not know any- 
thing at all about the dispositions of Kit and Buz 
and the baby. 

“ They wouldn’t cry,” said the little girl. 

Mr. Pinner pushed back his chair and walked 
up and down the sitting-room. 

“ I reckon she’s right,” he said, “ she’d be the 
one to do the whole of the crying. Mother, isn’t 
there any medicine for it ? ” 

“I reckon the little white calf got over its 
trouble in time,” said the old lady. 

Mr. Pinner paused in his walk. “Ko, it 
didn’t,” he said, solemnly, “ I gave up and let 
it run with the cow.” 


123 


Aunty's Letter 

On Sunday Mr. Pinner took Mary to church in 
the buggy. It was a warm day and very few 
children were present at the service. Old Mr. 
Harrington and his sister, Miss Jane, sat deco- 
rously in one of the front pews but it is not at 
all improbable that now and then Miss Jane’s 
thoughts strayed to the spick-and-span little boy 
she had left at home. 

Mr. Pinner and Mary were very good friends 
that evening when the old gentleman invited 
the little girl to go with him to see if everything 
was all right in the region of the barn. 

The beautiful moon was smiling on the Big 
Church when Mr. Pinner stopped at the stile. 

“Mary,” he said, “you haven’t called me 
‘grandpa’ yet. Don’t you think you could do 
it away off here from the house and with nobody 
listening ? ” 

She gave a bashful little laugh. 

“Honey,” said Mr. Pinner, impressively, “if 
you put your arms around my neck and call me 
‘ grandpa,’ just once, mind ! you can ask me for 
anything, and you’ll get it.” 

“ Anything ? ” repeated Mary. 

“ You’ll get it,” promised Mr. Pinner. 


124 


Mrs^ Pinner* s Little Girl 


She put her arms around his neck and she gave 
him a hug — such a one as she knew how to give. 

‘‘ Grandpa,” she said, with a little gasp in her 
voice, “ will you let me have a horse to-morrow 
morning ? ” 

“Well, where are you two hiding, anyway ?” 
exclaimed Mrs. Pinner. “ Oh, here you are ! I 
want to tell you, father, that next Sunday you 
can hitch up the carriage. If you can stand the 
heat, I reckon I can too, and I’m not going to be 
left out of everything.” 




CHAPTER VII 
The Promise Fulfilled 

Mary Daingerfield thought about Mr. 
Pinner’s promise that night as she lay in bed. 
He had said that he would give her anything 
that she asked for if she put her arms around his 
neck and called him grandpa, and she had done 
it. She had asked him to let her have a horse. 
Mr. Pinner was a good man and a man of his 
word. The sudden appearance of Mrs. Pinner 
had prevented him from acquiescing in the plan 
of the horse though it was a wonder he did not 
come right out with the whole matter. Mary 
was thankful for the old gentleman’s reticence. 
It had not been easy to hug Mr. Pinner and call 
him grandpa. 

She would take Kit’s flannel skirt in the morn- 
ing and ride over to the yellow house. She fell 
asleep smiling. 

The next morning after breakfast the little girl 


128 


Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 


fully expected Mr. Pinner to tell her that the 
horse would be saddled and bridled and brought 
to the hitching-post, but he did not naention the 
horse. He took his hat, however, and went out 
directly. She was glad to see him going toward 
the barn, and glowed with inward satisfaction 
when he called Job to come along, he had some- 
thing for him to do. Frequently during the 
hours of that long morning Mary looked out at 
the hitching-post, each time to be disappointed. 

Mrs. Pinner had said to Mr. Pinner that Sun- 
day that she had dressed for church, “ There, 
father, you’ve promised to carry the child some- 
where and have forgotten,” and Mr. Pinner had 
looked sorry and asked, “ Did I promise to carry 
you anywhere, Mary ? ” thereby proving that he 
was in the habit of forgetting things. But even 
if he had forgotten early in the morning he 
would have remembered when he saw the 
horses. Kit would have reminded him of his 
promise, calling him an “ old Indian-giver ” if she 
did not get the horse, but Mary would never have 
the courage to say a word. Mr. Pinner was a 
man who might keep some of his promises but 
most certainly he did not keep them all; she 


The Promise Fulfilled 129 

would never, never again hug him and call him 
grandpa. 

Mrs. Pinner’s little girl was more quiet than 
usual all the rest of the day, and she wrote two 
whole pages in her diary, carefully as usual and 
as usual without a blot. 

But Mr. Pinner had not forgotten that hug 
and the whispered “ grandpa ” out there on the 
stile. They were freighted with huge possibil- 
ities. He would do everything in his power for 
this pretty little girl with the gentle blood in her 
veins, and, in return, the little girl would give 
him and his dear old wife the affection of a 
daughter. That was the return he craved, the 
return he looked for, and he was not going to be 
disappointed. It would come in time. So the 
little girl wanted to ride horseback ? Ko doubt, 
she had been sitting there quietly at the window, 
watching the colored boy swing himself upon a 
horse, and had envied him, while neither he nor 
Mrs. Pinner had been able to divine her thoughts. 

“ And did she think,” he said to himself with 
a laugh, “ that I would let her risk her precious 
little bones on the back of one of the farm 
horses ? ” 


130 Mrs. Pinner^ s Little Girl 

He consulted Mrs. Pinner on the important 
subject. Several times Mary caused the two old 
people to lower their voices at her approach and 
on one occasion the old lady grew quite excited 
over a bundle that Job brought from the express 
office. 

“ It’s just something of mine, father,” she said, 
giving the old gentleman a look which plainly 
warned him to ask no questions. 

“ That’s all right,” said Mr. Pinner. “ Put it 
away somewhere and open it after a while.” 

Mrs. Pinner put the bundle away in her bureau 
drawer and the little girl was not about when 
she opened it. 

Then one day Mr. Pinner, on his return from 
a ride, stopped outside in the lane and sent the 
boy in to tell Mrs. Pinner to bring Mary out, he 
wanted them. 

There in the lane, beside Mr. Pinner’s beauti- 
ful chestnut mare was a little gray pony wearing 
a little girl’s saddle. 

Mr. Pinner’s face was a happy thing to see. 

Job led the pony to the block and in less 
than a minute Mary was seated securely in the 
saddle. 


The Promise Fulfilled 131 

“ We’ll try it between here and the barn and 
see how it goes,” said the old gentleman. 

To and fro between the picturesque old house 
and the prosperous old barn Mr. Pinner and 
Mary rode, first in a walk, then in a trot, and 
then in a gentle lope. 

“ Well ! ” cried the old lady, flushed with pleas- 
ure, “ well, if she doesn’t ride beautiful ! Father, 
I’m so glad you thought of getting her a pony.” 

Mr. Pinner laughed and laughed, but he did 
not explain to Mrs. Pinner that the little gray 
pony was payment for a hug and a whispered 
word. He had not understood the request but 
what a kind and generous man he was ! 

That gallop on the pony had raised Mary’s 
spirits, and she was laughing too as, without any 
help, she slid from the saddle to the ground and 
followed the old lady to the house. 

Mr. Pinner came over a little later and sat 
down in his great porch chair. He seemed 
fagged out. Dear knows how far he had gone 
after the pony ; and he had ridden to and fro in 
the lane until the fresh little girl had had enough. 

She stood in the doorway, looking at him. 
She ought to thank him. She knew instinctively 


Mrs* Pinner's Little Girl 


132 

how he would wish her to thank him and she 
screwed up her courage, but she was very glad 
that Mrs. Pinner was not in sight. 

She tiptoed across the porch lest somebody 
might hear. 

“ Thank you for the pony, grandpa,” she said, 
putting her arms about the old gentleman’s neck 
and kissing him. 

He said, “ God bless you ! ” and put his hands 
up to the precious little arms and caressed them 
in great content. Then it was all over and the 
little Daingerfield girl was back somewhere in 
the house. 

Mary’s second ride was an important affair. 
For it the little girl was arrayed in a cloth rid- 
ing-habit and a dark cap, both brought in triumph 
from Mrs. Pinner’s bureau drawer. The chest- 
nut mare and the little gray pony walked up the 
lane but broke into a canter on the public road, 
the pony keeping steadily head to head with the 
mare. The riders did not go in the direction 
of the yellow house, but they came back in some- 
thing closely resembling a hard gallop, and some- 
body’s cheeks were red and somebody’s eyes were 
dancing. 


The Promise Fulfilled 133 

After Mary had hung her habit on a hook in 
the closet she put the bundle containing Kit’s 
flannel skirt away back out of sight. She could 
not start off on the pony to see her sister unless 
she asked permission of Mr. and Mrs. Pinner or 
at least of the old gentleman whom she had 
twice called grandpa ; it would not be honest, 
and Mary was as honest a little mortal as ever 
breathed. 

So, the weeks went by. Sunday succeeded 
Sunday and the little girl went to church in the 
two-horse carriage with the master and mistress 
of Hayflelds. Mr. Harrington and Miss Jane 
were always in their pew and now and then 
Mary found herself wishing that Buz’s head 
would pop up and turn around. But Miss 
Jane would touch him sharply on the shoulder, 
of course, and bid him look in the right direction, 
and with this thought in her mind she was 
glad that poor Buz was not at church. Once she 
saw Mrs. Jones but she fanned herself so vigor- 
ously and appeared so dissatisfied and warm that 
Mary was not surprised that she did not come 
again. 

Coming in one morning from a delightful ride 


134 


Mrs. Pinne/s Little Girt 


on the little pony, Mary found a letter waiting 
for her on the table. Aunty had not written for 
a long time ; she had almost forgotten that the 
old woman owed her an answer. 

“ I hope,” said Mrs. Pinner, as Mary went off 
toward her room, “ that this letter isn’t going to 
upset her. If it does, I certainly will be angry 
with myself for not throwing it into the kitchen 
fire.” 

“If the letter upsets her the black woman 
shall never write again,” said Mr. Pinner. 

Still wearing her riding-habit, Mary settled 
herself in the little white rocking-chair, opened 
the letter and read : 

“Dear little Miss Mary: 

“ I take m}’^ pen in hand to let you know that 
I am well and to tell you I am verry glad to 
lern from a frend that you have got a butiful 
littul pony. I told you you was at the top of 
the ladder and I certinly am glad of it. I am still 
takin’ in washin’ for a livin’ and I wunder I got 
enny back left much less legs to stand on. I was 
over to see the baby yisday. He don’t look roun’ 
and fat like he done when he was my baby. He 
has cut two more teeth and is frettin’ a good 
deel. It is hotter back of the post-ofuse than 
enny house I ever was in in all my born days. I 
seen Kit and Buz to the post-ofuse yisday. Buz 


The Promise Fulfilled 135 

was lookin’ nice and tidy. I reckun he has clean 
fergot the time he done played roun’ in his ova- 
hauls. Your papa say Buz was the kind of boy 
to most live in his ovahauls. I hardly knowed 
Kit. The frekels on her face made me sick. 
Them Jonses don’t never make Kit wear her 
bonnet like your mamma use to. I tole Kit and 
Buz ’bout your pony but they knowed all ’bout 
it. Kit said she seen you once and waved her 
hand, but you was ridin’ fast and didn’t pay no 
’tention. Kit’s powful jealus and so is Buz. I 
am glad you got your pony and I hope sum day 
you will find time to ride ’round where your old 
aunty can git a good look at you. My frend say 
you got a ridiir habit what is a sight for sore 
eyes. I told you you would git all them things. 
I wish I could be as glad ’bout all my children as 
I is glad ’bout you. 

“ Kespect in haste, 

‘‘ Aunty.” 

Mary rose from the rocking-chair, put the 
letter carefully away in a pigeon-hole of the 
cherry desk, then she went over to one of the 
large windows and established herself on the 
sill. From this position she could look right 
down at that end of the two-mile meadow. 

Once upon a time there were two little calves 
in the meadow, a red one and a white one. These 
little calves were taken away from the old cows 
and fastened up in the barnyard and they bawled 


13 ^ Mrs. Hnner^s Little Girt 

all day and they bawled all night ; then the little 
white calf found its way back to the meadow and 
when a second time it was brought, bawling, to 
the barnyard there stood the little red calf, con- 
tentedly drinking its milk and switching its tail 
like an old cow. The little red calf forgot very 
soon. 

“ I wanted to go back like the little white calf 
but I couldn’t,” said Mary. “ I won’t be like the 
little red calf,” she added. “ I am not going to 
forget Kit and Buz and the baby.” 

She repeated this intention when she wrote in 
her diary : 

“ Dear Mamma : 

“ I promised you that I would take care 
of Kit and Buz and the baby. Cousin Cynthia 
said that you did not know how things would be 
or you would not have asked me to do it, but I 
believe you would because I am the oldest. I do 
not think you would like your children to be 
given away, and I know you would not like one 
of your children to be riding a beautiful little gray 
pony while your little girl. Kit, was running with- 
out her bonnet and getting freckled so bad that 
aunty hardly knew her, and 3^our dear little baby 
was fretting in that hot house behind the post- 
office, and your poor little boy. Buz, was living 
with two old particular people. I always told 
you everything, mamma, and I will tell you this 


The Promise Fulfilled 137 

too, though it almost breaks my heart. I was 
learning to forget like the little red calf, but I 
will not do it any more, I will try to think of 
some way in which I can take care of Kit and 
Buz and the baby. 

“ Your little daughter, 

“ Mary Daingerfield. 

“ P. S. Tell papa I am very sorry that I was 
learning to be like the little red calf.” 

The next time Mr. Pinner proposed a ride, 
Mary said that she did not wish to go, whereupon 
Mrs. Pinner spoke her thoughts right out. 

“ It’s the letter from the black woman, father,” 
she said, “ and I'm of the opinion that she’s taking 
a mighty fusty part in things. If I were you I 
certainly would ride over and order her to quit 
sending her letters to Hayfields ; the folks here 
can get along very well without them. Now, 
Mary, you mustn’t feel hurt and you mustn’t get 
mad with me, you’re too little to understand mat- 
ters, but you know that you were getting on 
nicely here and you certainly were enjoying your 
rides with grandpa. We want you to enjoy 
yourself, that’s what we got you for, and we just 
won’t have the black woman interfering. 

“ Now, this evening, after it gets cool,” con- 


138 Mrs* Pinner's Little Girl 

tinned the old lady, “ I want you to put on your 
habit and let father carry you down to the hollow 
to see the lady who is going to be your teacher 
when cool weather sets in. I won’t have you 
getting up any foolish notions that because all 
the others, Kit and Buz and them, haven’t got 
ponies, you’re not to enjoy yours. Some such 
stuff as that, I reckon, the black woman was 
writing about.” 

‘‘Ko, no, I guess not, mother,” said Mr. 
Pinner. 

“ I wish she’d get herself a service place out of 
the neighborhood,” said Mrs. Pinner, furiously. 

“ Mother,” said Mr. Pinner, with a short laugh, 
“ the little girl will think you’ve got a temper.” 

“Well, I have,” acknowledged the old lady. 
“ I’m not often roused, but when I am roused I 
show the stock I come from. Mary, go right 
into your room and put on your habit and father 
will take you down the road before it gets hot 
and introduce you to the lady who is going to be 
your teacher.” 

Filled with great dismay the little girl went 
obediently into her room and put on her habit. 

“Mother, you oughtn't to be so hard,” she 


The Promise Fulfilled 139 

heard Mr. Pinner say as her little trembling 
hands fastened the habit, “ she’s just the best lit- 
tle girl that ever was.” 

“Things were going so smoothly,” grumbled 
Mrs. Pinner. “ I’d like to sell the black woman.” 

It was a quiet ride down to the hollow, both 
Mr. Pinner and the little girl feeling that they 
were obeying orders and that Mrs. Pinner in a 
temper was certainly somebody to be obeyed. 

The lady teacher was pleasant and talkative 
and she said that she would be glad, indeed, 
when the term opened and she could begin work, 
and she was confident that Mary would learn 
easily. 

“We want her to take the music, too,” said 
Mr. Pinner. 

“ Of course,” assented Miss Burdet. “ Can she 
sing ? ” 

The next thing would be the asking of Mary 
to sing, Mr. Pinner and Mary knew, and they 
were both rebellious. They had yielded prompt 
obedience to the old lady, but the teacher was 
little and prim and young. 

“We haven’t had her long,” said Mr. Pinner. 
“ We’ll find out and let you know later.” 


140 


Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 


The prim young lady said, “ Oh, yes, cer- 
tainly.” She was very agreeable. 

That night Mrs. Pinner opened the door be- 
tween the large room and the little room. 

“ If she doesn’t sleep well, we can hear her and 
I’ll go over,” she explained to Mr. Pinner, in a 
gentle voice. 

“ That’s right,” said the old gentleman, “ that’s 
right.” 

Mary lay very still but her hands went up to 
her eyes and got wet. 

“ Father,” confessed the old lady, “ I did a dis- 
graceful thing to-day. I read a page of that 
dear little thing’s diary.” 

“Mother,” said Mr. Pinner, “that wasn’t 
honest.” 

“No, it wasn’t honest,” said Mrs. Pinner, “and 
I’ll never do it again.” 

“ That’s right,” said Mr. Pinner, “ that’s right.” 
He was silent for a minute then he asked curi- 
ously and with a little laugh, “What did you 
read about, mother ? ” 

“ You won’t laugh when I tell you, father,” 
answered the old lady. “ She’d been writing a 
letter to her mamma.” 


The Promise Fulfilled 141 

“Well, well, well!” said Mr. Pinner. 

“ That little bit of a thing promised her mother 
she’d look after the other children, and she tells 
her in the letter that she will try to think of some 
way to do it. That isn’t all.” 

“ Well, well ! ” said Mr. Pinner. 

“ There was a postscript.” 

“There was, mother. It wasn’t honest to 
read it.” 

“ I know it wasn’t,” said Mrs. Pinner, “ and 
I’ll never touch the book again. And written 
just as neat ! Father, I felt that bad.” 

“What was in the postscript?” asked Mr. 
Pinner. 

Word for word Mrs. Pinner repeated the post- 
script. Then she started up in bed. “Father, 
that dear little thing’s awake,” she said, “ I hear 
her moving.” 

She left her bed and bounced into the little 
room. 

“ You’re crying and no wonder ! ” she ex- 
claimed. “Your Cousin Cynthia had no right 
in the world to give you away to such an ill- 
humored old woman. There, honey, hush! I 
want you to have a good time, indeed I do. 


142 


Mrs^ Hnne/s Little Girl 


You’re not a bit like the little red calf, not a bit. 
If you feel that you must see Kit and Buz and 
the baby, well, you’ve got to see them, that’s all. 
We don’t want you ever to have to break away 
like the little white calf.” 

The old lady was sitting on the bed. She 
gathered the little girl in her arms. 

“ Ask for whatever you want,” she said, “ and 
you’ll get it.” 

The suddenness of it all upset little Mary 
Daingerfield. At first she could think of noth- 
ing and then she said with a gasp, 

“ Kit might need her flannel skirt.” 

“ Is that Kit’s petticoat in the bundle stuffed 
away back in the closet ? ” inquired Mrs. Pinner. 
‘‘ I thought it was yours and wondered why you 
wrapped it up.” 

“ It’s Kit’s,” said Mary. 

“Ask for anything you want and you shall 
have it,” repeated the contrite old lady. 

Little Mary, still half-dazed, understood the 
promise to entail the same conditions named by 
Mr. Pinner out on the stile. For an instant she 
hesitated, then Mrs. Pinner felt the deliciousness 


The Promise Fulfilled 143 

of a child’s hug and heard her little girl say, 
tearfully, 

“ Grandma, may I give a party to my sister 
and brother ? ” 

The hug was returned with vehemence. 

“Bless her precious little heart!” cried 
grandma, “certainly she shall give a party to 
her sister and brother, and grandpa himself will 
fetch Kit and the little boy. Honey, if you 
go right to sleep, you may give the party to- 
morrow.” 












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( 


V 


* 


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I 



. :/• 



i 


' « • 

• J f 



CHAPTER Vni 
A Party 

“ There was a little girl, 

And she had a little curl, 

It hung way down on her forehead. 

When she was good she was very, very good^ 

And when she was bad she was horrid.” 

Surely, it would never, under any circum- 
stances, be respectful to say that when the old 
lady was bad she was horrid. Be that as it may, 
little Mary Daingerfield could not help thinking 
that when the old lady was good, she was very, 
very good. 

My 1 how she bustled about that morning of 
the day of the party, in and out of the kitchen ! 
in and out of the pantry ! And what a stupen- 
dous number of little cakes she did make ! Liza 
remonstrated with the old lady about the little 
cakes, declaring that the table would look like a 
store counter, and muttering, while the old lady 
disappeared into the pantry, that “Mis’ Pinna 


148 Mrs^ Pinner* s Little Girl 

sutney must think oda people’s chillen was pow- 
erful hongry.” 

Liza’s part was to prepare the chickens, and 
the house-girl was sent off in the buggy to buy a 
half dozen small-sized plates, Mrs. Pinner hold- 
ing that children would never be satisfied to eat 
out of grown folks’ plates at a party. 

“ Who all is cornin’ to de pawty, anyway. Miss 
Mary ? ” asked Liza. 

“ Kit and Buz,” said Mary. 

“ Beckon dey’ll be ’spected to stuff cakes ’tween 
times,” said Liza. “ Mis’ Pinna, is we gunno make 
ice cream ? ” 

“ Of course, we are going to make ice cream,” 
said Mrs. Pinner. “ Who ever heard of a party 
without ice cream ? ” 

“ What’s the fracas ? ” inquired Mr. Pinner, ap- 
pearing on the scene. 

“ I’ve been asked a foolish question,” said Mrs. 
Pinner, in her most pleasant voice. “ I didn’t 
know I had such a dumb darky on the place. 
I’ve been asked, mind you, father ! if we’re going 
to have ice cream at the party. Did you ever 
hear of a party without ice cream ? ” 

‘‘ Never 1 ” said Mr. Pinner. 


A Party 149 

I have,” said Mary, “ but they’re not so nice 
as parties with ice cream.” 

“ Not near as nice, are they, honey ? ” asked 
Mr. Pinner. 

“ No, not near,” returned Mary, gravely. 

“ Everybody seems to have a finger in the pie 
but me,” declared the old gentleman. “ It isn’t 
fair ! ” 

“ Miss Mary she done measured de suga’,” said 
Liza, with a gleam in her eyes. 

“ You are to go for the little girl and boy, 
father, you know that,” said Mrs. Pinner, bust- 
ling across to the pantry. “ You must go early 
so as to give the folks time to dress them.” 

“ Ain’t de baby cornin’ ? ” inquired Liza. 

“ Hush ! ” ordered the old lady. “ No, Liza, 
the baby isn’t coming. No child of that age is 
to run the risk of sunstroke riding around in this 
weather. I am going to carry Mary to see the 
baby soon as ever I get the time.” 

“I’m going to see the baby,” said Mary to her- 
self. “ I’m going to see the baby.” It was like a 
happy little song. Yes, she could sing. She 
could not have sung yesterday for the lady 
teacher down in the hollow, but she could sing 


Mrs^ Pinner^ s Little Girt 


150 

now. She almost wished that Mr. and Mrs. 
Pinner would ask her to sing. 

“ There was a little girl, 

And she had a little curl, 

It hung way down on her forehead. 

When she was good, she was very, very good, 

And when she was bad she was horrid.” 

She could sing that; she could sing Yankee 
Doodle ; the old gentleman would be sure to like 
Yankee Doodle. “ Grandpa would like Yankee 
Doodle,” she said to herself, and then she said, 
and even the little voice in her heart was timid, 
“ Maybe grandma would like it too.” 

Mr. Pinner went off in the carriage directly 
after lunch, the black boy beside him, but when 
the carriage returned with its load Job was sit- 
ting like a lady in the back, his legs crossed com- 
fortably, and showing every tooth in his head. 
Occupying the front seat with Mr. Pinner were 
Kit and Buz, and Buz had possession of the reins. 
‘‘ Here they come ! ” cried Mrs. Pinner. 

“ Does the dog bite ? ” called Kit’s clear voice. 
“ I ain’t ’fraid,” declared the fearless Buz. 
Mary, see me jump I ” 

“ Count three first,” ordered Kit. 


A Party 151 

“ One, two, free ! ” exclaimed the little boy, 
and he reached the gate with a slide. 

“ Well, did I ever ! ” cried the old lady. 

“ Watch me ! One, two, three ! There ! ” and 
Kit stood, smiling in triumph half a yard inside 
the gate. 

Your feet’s bigger,” grumbled Buz, “your 
legs zlonger too.” 

“ I beat a boy ! I beat a boy ! ” yelled Kit. 

“ Well, if children aren’t the funniest things,” 
said Mrs. Pinner, shaking with laughter. “ I 
want to see you two kiss your sister ‘ How-do-do,’ 
and then I want to tell you something.” 

Bashfully and obediently the children kissed, 
then Kit exclaimed, “ How, tell us.” 

“It’s just this,” said Mrs. Pinner. “While 
you’re here I want you to call me grandma 
and the old gentleman who drove you over 
grandpa.” 

“ All right,” said Kit. 

“ All zright,” echoed Buz, beaming. 

‘You thought you were driving, didn’t you. 
Buz?” said Kit. “I knew you weren’t. 
Grandpa had the reins behind your hands. 
That’s why Job was laughing.” 


152 


Mrs. Pinner's Little Girt 


“ Tain’t so,” said Buz, his round face clouding. 
“ Did drive the orzes.” 

“ You oughtn’t to tease him, he’s so little,” said 
the old lady to Kit. “ I am sure that grandpa 
will let him drive home.” 

“ I fought he was a drandpa,” said Buz, beam- 
ing again. 

“Now, you may just play wherever you like,” 
said Mrs. Pinner ; “ you’ve the whole afternoon 
for we’re not going to have the party till supper- 
time.” 

“Just takes to eat now,” said Buz, already 
catching sight of the last lot of little cakes that 
were cooling. 

Liza giggled as she handed the cakes round, 
and then the three of them started off to 
play. 

My I the rumpus that was in the old house that 
afternoon ! My 1 the gymnastics and the whoop- 
ing on the lawn with the old dog’s voice in the 
chorus! Mr. and Mrs. Pinner, sitting on the 
porch, laughed and listened. 

“ There ! tore my sleeve ! ” cried Buz, from the 
yard. 

“Well, Buz” — that was Kit of course, “you 



.w' 









A Part^ 153 

tear yourself all you want to-day. You don’t 
belong to her to-day.” 

“Tore ozer sleeve!” announced Buz, in wild 
delight. 

The three children raced up to the barn to 
look at the pony and down to the pond to look at 
the ducks, but much to the amusement of Mr. 
and Mrs. Pinner, it was the strange little girl 
who led the way. 

“ They get a heap of comfort out of her at the 
yellow house, I reckon,” said the old lady. 

“ Did you see the boy driving ? ” asked the old 
gentleman. “ There, they come back. Look at 
his legs, will you, mother ? ” 

Mrs. Pinner looked at the boy’s legs as he 
threw all his energy into the race ; then she 
looked at Mr. Pinner and said, 

“ Father, you know that we wanted a girl.” 

“I’m perfectly satisfied, mother,” said Mr. 
Pinner. 

“ She’ll be exactly what we were after, in a 
little while,” said Mrs. Pinner. “ There, look in 
the swing ! ” 

In the swing was Kit, standing, fearless, 
strong, glowing. 


154 Pinne/s Little Girl 

“ I didn’t know she was so pretty.” 

The old gentleman was looking. “ She cer- 
tainly is pretty,” he said. 

‘‘ They dress her well at the yellow house. I 
guess she gives them a lot of pleasure already.” 

I’m satisfied with what we’ve got,” said Mr. 
Pinner. 

“I think I’ll call them up and ask them 
whether they’ll have tea or coffee at the party,” 
said the old lady, laughing again. “ Children, 
children, come here, I’ve something to say to 
you.” 

“ Wait till I die,” called Kit, but the process 
being a slow one she overtook Mary and Buz. 

‘‘ I want to ask the company,” said Mrs. Pin- 
ner, with becoming gravity, “ whether they wish 
tea or coffee at the party.” 

“ Tea,” said Kit. 

“ Toffee ! ” cried the little boy. 

“ You’ve got an awful nice house,” said Kath- 
arine Daingerfield, while her brother and sister, 
following her example, seated themselves upon 
the porch steps. “ I counted the rooms. Fif- 
teen rooms, yes, there were. Buz, without the 
three dear little rooms in the cellar.” 


A Party 155 

“ Dot nice orzes,” said Buz. 

‘‘The black boy wouldn’t let us ride Mary’s 
pony,” said Kit. 

“ Drandpa will let us,” said Buz, starting up. 

Mr. Pinner rose upon his feet with alacrity. 

“ To be sure they must have a ride on the 
pony, mother,” he said. 

“ I just love it here ! ” cried Kit, ecstatically. 

“ Dood-bye, drandma,” called Buz, affably. 

“We’ll be back,” said Kit, convincingly. “I 
want to take a good long rest in the swing be- 
fore I go to the party.” 

“ And eat little takes,” added Buz, serenely. 

Kit was in the lead, when the children an- 
swered the call to the party. 

“ Kow, look here,” said the old lady, “ father 
and I will come to the party, if you wish, but if 
you’d rather we’d stay away, why, that’ll be all 
right.” 

“ Oh, everybody wants you to come to the 
party,” cried Mary. 

“Why, you just must come to the party, 
grandma,” said Kit, and she took hold of Mrs. 
Pinner’s hand. 

“ You must tome to party, too, drandpa,” said 


V, 156 Mrs* Pinner's Little Girl 

Buz, and he put his sturdy arms around the old 
gentleman’s waist and pulled. 

“ I don’t wonder that she misses them, father,” 
said Mrs. Pinner. 

“ Nor I either,” said Mr. Pinner. 

“ Laws, de chillen is hongry. Mis’ Pinna,” said 
Liza, as she passed the chicken a second time. 
“ I neva seen anybawdy leetle as dat boy eat as 
much as he do. Good he’s goin’ home in de 
kerridge.” 

“ I’s a man,” declared Buz. 

“ Miss Jane doesn’t think Buz is a man,” said 
Kit ; “ she thinks he’s a baby.” 

“ Ain’t a baby,” retorted Buz, “ I’s a man, so 
zam. Miss Tit.” 

“Miss Jane,” continued the garrulous Kath- 
arine, “ got mad with Buz because he spilled jelly 
all over the table-cloth.” 

“Oh, Buz, you didn’t spill jelly all over the 
table-cloth ? ” cried Mary, and Mr. and Mrs. 
Pinner exchanged glances appreciative of the 
condemnatory accent in the voice of their little 
girl. 

“Did I ’’said Buz. 


A Party 157 

“Miss Jane put him to bed at six o’clock,” 
continued Kit. “ Didn’t she, Buz ? ” 

“Yes,” answered Buz, his little round face in- 
dignant, “ put me to bed zix o’clock.” 

“ But Buz got even,” concluded Kit. “ Buz, 
tell everybody what you wouldn’t do. Look at 
grandpa, he’s your favorite, and tell him what 
you wouldn’t do.” 

A queer little smile of satisfaction dawned 
upon the round face as Buz turned his eyes to 
grandpa. “Wouldn’t tall her mamma for free 
whole days,” he said. 

“Buz,” cried Mary, “you don’t call Miss Jane 
Harrington mamma ? ” 

“ Didn’t tall her mamma for free whole days,” 
repeated Buz, triumphantly. 

“ I just call that a shame, father,” cried Mrs. 
Pinner. “I don’t wonder somebody is hurt. 
‘Mamma,’ indeed, and she never so much as 
married I ” 

“ Isn’t Miss Jane Harrington married ? ” asked 
Kit, in wild astonishment. “Oh, Buz, you just 
tell her you heard she wasn’t married.” 

“ All zright,” said Buz. 


158 Mrs* Pinne/s Little Girl 

“Buz is awful bad,” explained Kit, suddenly 
growing virtuous. “ The reason I said I would 
take tea instead of coffee is because my new 
mamma doesn’t let me drink coffee.” 

“My new mamma don’t let me ezer,” said 
Buz, speaking very quickly, “ but I ain’t mindin’ 
my new mamma to-day.” 

“ The cunning little mortal ! ” cried grandma, 
while grandpa shook all over. 

“ Tit lives wis omans,” said Buz. 

But Katharine Daingerfield was too happy to 
be teased. 

“ I know I do,” she said. 

“ I don’t live wis no omans,” said Buz. 

“You don’t?” cried Mrs. Pinner, in astonish- 
ment. “ Why, Buz, who was it put you to bed 
if it wasn’t a woman ? ” 

“ Miss Dane put me to bed,” said Buz. 

“He means,” explained Kit, “that Mrs. Jones 
isn’t a lady.” 

“Oh!” said Mrs. Pinner. “I wouldn’t say 
that if I were you.” 

“ She puts her own knife in the butter,” said 
Kit. 

Buz laughed appreciatively. 


A Party 159 

“She makes a noise when she drinks her 
coffee.” 

“ Makes noise when drinks toffee,” echoed Buz. 
He lifted his cup and drank the contents and set 
it down with a contented gasp. 

“ There, Buz,” cried Kit, “ you made a noise 
yourself.” 

“ Didn’t I ” protested Buz. 

“Everybody heard you,” said Kit. “Five 
people heard you, grandma and grandpa and 
Mary and Liza and me. I guess you ain’t a gen- 
tleman, Buz.” 

“ I am a gentleman, so zam,” said Buz. 

“ Maybe some day he’ll be a gentleman,” said 
Kit, “ because he lives with a lady, but I cer- 
tainly am glad that my woman mamma doesn’t 
put me to bed at six o’clock in the evening ; I 
certainly am. She lets me stay up just as long 
as ever I wish. I nearly always go to sleep on 
the lounge.” 

“ Wish I lived wis omans mamma,” said Buz, 
sorrowfully. 

“ Somebody isn’t saying a word but she’s think- 
ing a whole lot,” said Mrs. Pinner. “ The two 
of them are a wild little team, aren’t they, 


i6o Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 

father ? It makes a person feel young to have 
them around. Buz, I think I’ll mend your sleeves 
for you before I let grandpa carry you back to 
Miss Jane.” 

“ You needn’t, grandma,” said Kit. “ Buz is 
going to do something that I told him next time 
Miss Jane puts him to bed. And don’t for- 
get, Buz, to tell her that you heard she wasn’t 
married.” 

“ "Want my zleeves mended ! ” howled Buz. 

The little boy’s sleeves were mended nicely 
when he climbed in beside grandpa to go home, 
and proudly took possession of the lines. 

“ Div me whip,” he ordered. Doin’ to make 
orzes do fast.” 

“I wish I had a little pony like Mary’s to 
take home with me,” said Kit, jealously. “I 
know something else I wish. I wish I was going 
to live here all the time.” 

“ Me too ! ” cried Buz. 

“Did you both kiss your sister good-bye?” 
asked Mrs. Pinner, from the gateway. 

The two heads nodded emphatically. 

“ Did you tell her you would come to see her 
again ? ” 


i6i 


A Part^ 

“ ril come whenever she gives a party,” said 
Kit. “ I’ll come to-morrow if she gives a party 
and lets me ride on her pony.” 

“ And see ducks and zwing,” said Buz. 

“Well, good-bye to you both,” said the old 
lady. 

“Dood-bye, drandma,” said Buz. “Now, I 
want the whip. I want the orzes to dit up 
fast.” 

“Good-bye, grandma,” said Kit, “take good 
care of yourself. I want to tell you something. 
Grandpa, don’t let Buz whip the horses till 
grandma comes over here and lets me whisper 
something to her. I’ve got to whisper it because 
it wouldn’t be quite polite to say it out loud.” 

“ I certainly do want to hear badly,” said Mrs. 
Pinner, advancing close to the carriage. 

Kit leaned forward, put her mouth to the old 
lady’s ear and whispered : 

“ Don’t tell anybody, but you’re my favorite.” 

“ Oh, I dot som’n to tell Mary,” cried Buz. 
“ Mary, ’deed and double, the baby is doin’ to do 
to Balt’more.” 

“ There ! Buz Daingerfield,” cried Kit, “ didn’t 
grandpa ask you not to say anything to Mary 


i 62 


Mrs* Pinner^ s Little Girl 


about the baby going to the orphan asylum ? I 
just knew you’d do it.” 

“Didn’t say nosin’ ’bout baby doin’ to or’n 
’zylum,” said Buz. “ I said he was doin’ to do to 
Balt ’more, and so he is.” 

It was Mr. Pinner who touched the horses 
with the whip. 



CHAPTER IX 
Maty Writes to Dave 

Mrs. Pinner’s little girl watched the carriage 
out of sight. The party was over, and Kit and 
Buz were speeding back to the yellow house and 
the Harrington cottage, but it was of neither Kit 
nor Buz that she was thinking. 

“Do you believe it’s true that our baby is 
going to an orphan asylum ? ” she asked, her 
brown eyes seeking the eyes of the old lady. 

“ Oh, I reckon it isn’t true,” said Mrs. Pinner. 
“ The folks back of the post-office were too glad 
to get hold of a baby ever to give it to an asy- 
lum. Father will tell us when he gets back that 
it isn’t true.” 

Upon his return, however, the old gentleman 
acknowledged that it was true. 

When Mrs. Pinner cried out that it was a 
shame and asked if something couldn’t be done 
to stop it, Mr. Pinner shook his head. 

“ You said you would take me to see the baby,” 
said Mary. 


i66 


Mrs* Pinner's Little Girt 


“ So we did,” said Mr. Pinner, “ and I wish we 
had done it, little girl, but it’s too late now. 
Yes, mother, they carried the child to Baltimore 
this afternoon.” 

“Mary,” said Mrs. Pinner, “you mustn’t go 
and take this thing hard. Why, bless me ! the 
baby’s too little to understand anything about an 
orphan asylum, and I’m sure Kit and Buz didn’t 
seem to mind.” 

She lifted Mary to her lap and tried to reason 
with her. 

“ The baby will be taken care of in the asylum, 
ten chances to one,” she said, emphatically, “ bet- 
ter than it ever was taken care of back of the 
post-office. The asylum folks are trained to give 
proper attention to babies. By the time your 
little brother is running around the place I know 
he’ll be so pretty that somebody nice will just 
want him badly. I hope rich folks will adopt 
him outright. Look here, father, I don’t believe 
this little girl fully appreciates being adopted 
outright. I guess I didn’t explain it right. You 
tell her all it means.” 

“Never mind about that now,” said the old 
gentleman, “ she’s our little girl and may be some 


Maiy Writes to Dave 167 

day she’ll be glad of it. I am sure that some 
day she’ll be glad of it.” 

“I wish the baby were sitting on my lap,” 
said Mary. 

“ I wish so too,” said the old lady, “ but I’d 
have to ask you to sit in your little chair. 
Honey, ’pon my honor, I’d send for the baby to- 
morrow only I never was good at looking after a 
very young child. He’s a heap better off at the 
asylum than he was in the house back of the 
post-office, for I have a poor opinion of the Wil- 
sons for letting him go, and he’s better off than 
he would be here at Hayfields.” 

The little girl slid off the old lady’s lap and 
crept away to her room. 

Mrs. Pinner heaved a sigh. 

“ I dare say the party has been a failure too,” 
she said. 

“Oh, no, the party was all right,” said Mr. 
Pinner. “ I’m sure it won’t hurt a bit to have a 
party every now and then.” 

“ Dear knows ! we try to please her,” said Mrs. 
Pinner. “ Yes, father, she’s a sweet little thing, 
but how long is it going to take her to learn to 
be glad that she’s living at Hayfields ? ” 


i68 Mrs^ Pinner* s Little Girl 

“ How long has she been here ? ” asked Mr. 
Pinner. 

“ Nearly two months,” answered the old lady, 
and sighed again. 

“May be when she begins to go to school 
things’ll be different.” 

“ I hope so but I don’t feel sure.” 

The little girl at the cherry desk in the pretty 
room was almost sure that her heart was break- 
ing as she wrote these words in her diary ; 

“ The Wilsons have sent the baby to Baltimore 
to an orphan asylum and I don’t know what 
to do about it. Cousin Cynthia ought to be 
told.” 

Mary closed the diary and leaning her elbows 
on the desk prepared to think the question out 
bravely. She was not going to cry. Crying 
would not do any good, it would only bring Mrs. 
Pinner into the room. Perhaps if she thought 
for a long, long time there might come to her 
some way to get the baby out of the orphan asy- 
lum, for certainly the Daingerfield baby must be 
taken out of the orphan asylum. Her Cousin 
Cynthia had written to her once, the letter was 
safe in a pigeon-hole. 


Mar^ Writes to Dave 169 

Cousin Cynthia had said that she would like 
her cousin’s little people all to live together, but 
she was poor and could hardly make ends meet. 
Mary herself had some money. Mr. Pinner had 
given her a little iron bank and a ten dollar gold 
piece. She did not know whether a ten dollar 
gold piece would pay her Cousin Cynthia’s way 
from Boston to Baltimore and back, but she 
hoped it would, for it seemed to her, the more 
she thought, that Cousin Cynthia was the person 
to get the baby out of the asylum. She realized 
that it would be a delicate undertaking to tell 
Cousin Cynthia that her first cousin’s baby, her 
own little cousin, was in an orphan asylum, for 
it certainly was as sad as if the baby were dead. 
People always sent some one to tell you when 
anybody was dead. The doctor had come to 
the little house in Willowbrook to break the 
news when her papa had died at the hospital. 
She did not know any doctor in Boston or she 
would write to him. Then a bright idea came to 
her. New York was not very far from Boston. 
She would write to Dave Pinner and ask him to 
go to Boston and break the sad news to her 
Cousin Cynthia. If he were like either his 


lyo Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 

father or his mother he would do it. She would 
obtain Dave’s address and write at once. 

“ Grandma,” said a timid little voice in the sit- 
ing-room. The name had come so easily to Kit 
and Buz, strange that it was so difficult to her. 
The old lady was dozing in her chair. She 
started, almost thinking it was the other little 
girl, but she was pleased that it was Mary. 

“ Well, honey ? ” she asked. 

“ Would you care if I were to write a letter to 
your son in New York ? ” 

‘‘ What’s that ? ” cried the old gentleman. 

I want to write a letter to your son,” said 
Mary, bashfully. 

My ! how the two old people laughed ! They 
could not help it. 

“ Dave will be tickled to death,” said the old 
lady, recovering herself. “Why should I care, 
Mary? Why, I’m just delighted, and so is 
father.” 

“Surely,” said Mr. Pinner. “Dave certainly 
will appreciate the letter.” 

“I will have to have the address,” said the 
little girl. “Will you please give me the ad- 
dress, grandma ? ” 


Maiy Writes to Dave 171 

“Open the cupboard door and read it off to 
her, father,” ordered the old lady, and the old 
gentleman obeyed. 

Mary had a piece of paper and a pencil and 
she wrote the address as Mr. Pinner read it. 

And this was the letter enclosed in the envel- 
ope addressed to Mr. David Pinner, of New 
York City : 

“Dear Mr. Dave Pinner: 

“ My name is Mary Daingerfield. I live at 
Hayfields. Perhaps your father and mother have 
told you about me. They took me because my 
mamma and papa are dead and Cousin Cynthia 
could not keep all us children together. She 
did not have the money to do it. I want to ask 
of you a big favor. I hope you will do it for me. 
Somebody has to break the news to Cousin 
Cynthia that the Wilsons have sent our baby 
off to the orphan asylum in Baltimore. I want 
you to do it. I do not know any doctor and 
New York is not far from Boston in the geog- 
raphy. I cut off Cousin Cynthia’s address and 
send it to you in this letter. Please do not lose 
it until you go to Boston. I have answered 
Cousin Cynthia’s letter and do not need it any 
more. Your father has a nice way of keeping 
an address. He marks it down on the inside of 
the cupboard door and it is always there. Your 
address is on the cupboard door in the dining- 
room. I did not know it until to-day. I am sure 
that Cousin Cynthia will manage to get the baby 


172 


Mrs. Hnne/s Little Girl 


out of the orphan asylum. It will be better to 
give it to a nice lady than let it stay there. If I 
were big I would teach school and keep us all to- 
gether, but I know that Cousin Cynthia cannot 
do it for she has her uncle to support and it costs a 
whole lot to live in Boston. Beefsteak is very high 
in Boston. I would live here in Maryland where 
beefsteak is low priced if I were big enough to 
teach school. I have ten dollars in gold that I 
will send to Cousin Cynthia to go down to Balti- 
more to get the baby. I hope it will be enough. 
I know that gold is worth more than other kind 
of money. Your father gave me the ten dollars. 
It is put away in a little bank, but I know he 
will let me spend it if I want to. Your father 
and mother are both very good to me. I call 
them grandpa and grandma now. I hope you do 
not care. 

“ Your little friend, 

“Mary Daingerfield. 

“ P. S. I think the picture of your sister Mary 
is very pretty and I think it is very sad that she 
died when she was a little girl. If I were you I 
' would come home. Hayfields is a beautiful place 
and I think your father needs you very much.” 


Mary waited patiently for an answer to her 
letter. It came in the course of a week. 

“It’s from Dave,” said Mrs. Pinner, looking 
curiously at the envelope. “Mary, I wonder 
what you and Dave are corresponding about ! 


Mary Writes to Dave m 

There! take the letter. You needn’t tell us if 
you don’t want.” 

“Is it a letter from Dave?” cried the old 
gentleman, cheerfully. “ After you read it you 
must tell mother and me how Dave is.” 

The little girl stood undecided. Was it right 
that she should carry a letter from Dave Pinner 
off to her room, as she carried her letters from 
aunty ? Dave belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Pinner. 

“ It’s about something I asked him,” she said, 
timidly. 

Then the old lady began laughing and said, 
“ Kun along.” 

“There’s no use talking, father,” said Mrs. 
Pinner, “she isn’t a bit like our Mary. I’m 
dying with curiosity to know what she wrote to 
Dave.” 

“Perhaps Dave will write, too, and let the 
cat out of the bag,” said the old gentleman, 
hopefully. 

“ Don’t you think I ought to call you niece ? ” 
Dave wrote in his letter after beginning it, “ Dear 
little Mary.” “ It seems to me that I must be a 
sort of uncle of yours the way things go. I 
received your letter and contents noted. I will 


174 Pinner's Little Girl 

take good care of the address and I certainly will 
run up to Boston some day and see your Cousin 
Cynthia and tell her that she must, by all means, 
go down to Baltimore and get the baby out of 
the orphan asylum. I am sure the gold piece 
will be plenty of money to pay traveling expenses 
both ways. But my stars ! you don’t know what 
a fine place an orphan asylum is, little girl. I 
believe the baby has the best of it. An orphan 
asylum isn’t nearly as lonely as Hayfields. It’s 
full to overfiowing with babies. I was in one 
the other day for the first time in my life. I’ll tell 
you what to do. Ask mother to take you to the 
Baltimore asylum to see the baby, then you’ll 
feel all right. But I’ll do what you ask in due 
time. I think it is very nice of you to call my 
father and mother ‘grandpa’ and ‘grandma.’ If 
there is anything else I can do for you don’t hesi- 
tate to write and let me know.” 

She must wait again, for it did not seem, ac- 
cording to the letter, that Dave Pinner was going 
to Boston in a hurry. She hoped that he would 
not lose her Cousin Cynthia’s address and wished 
that it, too, were marked in chalk on the inside 
of the cupboard door. 


175 


Mary Writes to Dave 

That day at the dinner table Mary asked Mr. 
Pinner a question, looking up at him very seri- 
ously. 

“ Grandpa,” she asked, “ what is ‘ contents 
noted’ ? ” 

“ What’s that ? ” cried Mr. Pinner, for the voice 
was not very loud. 

“ She says what is ‘ contents noted,’ father ? ” 
explained the old lady. 

“ Oh ! ” said Mr. Pinner. 

“ Don’t you understand ? It’s part of Dave’s 
letter.” 

“ Oh ! ” said the old gentleman, smiling. 
“Why, honey, it means that Dave gave his 
attention to everything that was in that letter 
of yours. Of course he did.” 

“ What does ‘ in due time ’ mean ? ” asked 
Mary. 

“I am sure it means right away, instanter,” 
said Mr. Pinner. 

But it was a whole month later that Mary 
Daingerfield gave Dave’s letter to Dave’s mother 
to read. 

“Well, father, isn’t this too cute of her?” 
asked the old lady. “Dave tells her to ask 


176 Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 

mother to carry her to Baltimore to see the baby. 
She couldn’t screw up her courage to ask me so 
she’s let me see the letter at last.” 

“ What about the baby ? ” asked Mr. Pinner. 

“ Why, the letter’s all about the baby. Mary, 
may I read it to father ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Mary, meekly, but she went out 
on the porch while Mrs. Pinner read the letter at 
the top of her voice. 

“ That’s a nice letter,” said the old gentleman. 
“ I wish Dave would run up to Boston to see 
Miss Daingerfield. I just wish he would.” 

“ He’s promised,” said Mrs. Pinner. “ Doesn’t 
Dave keep his promises, father ? ” 

“ I believe he does, only he’s pretty slow some- 
times. I’d like him to run up to Boston soon to 
see Mary’s cousin. I’d like to hear how she is.” 

“ It’s a wonder she didn’t give me the letter 
before she started in to school,” said the old lady. 
“I guess her Cousin Cynthia is busy with her 
school, too. You’re right, father, she certainly is 
a sweet little woman. I don’t know when I ever 
saw manners that pleased me more. Mary!” 
she called. 

The little girl answered the call promptly. 


177 


Mary Writes to Dave 

“ I am going to take you to Baltimore to see the 
baby,” she said, “ but I must wait for it to get cooler ; 
this fall is as warm as summer-time, and I can’t 
stand traveling in hot weather. Father, the next 
time you ride to Willowbrook get the address of 
the asylum, will you ? ” 

“ I certainly will,” said the old gentleman. 

Mr. Pinner rode to Willowbrook especially to 
secure the address and Mrs. Pinner put it care- 
fully away, but it was a long time before the 
prospective trip came off. 

Dave Pinner’s next letter was to his mother. 
In it he said : “ Tell my niece that I have been to 
Boston and seen her Cousin Cynthia and that I 
am going to run up again to discuss the impor- 
tant question of getting the Daingerfield baby out 
of the orphan asylum.” 

Mrs. Pinner was very much pleased with this 
letter. She read the sentence about the trip to 
Boston three times aloud to Mr. Pinner, and she 
gave him a queer little look that Mary did not 
understand. 

“ I certainly am glad he is going back,” said 
Mr. Pinner. 

“Cousin Cynthia ought to have written me 


lyS Mrs* Pinner's Little Girl 

about the money,” said Mary. “ I don’t know 
whether it’s enough or not. I wish she would go 
and get the baby right away.” 

“ Before you and I get to Baltimore ? ” cried 
the old lady. “ Father, I had better bestir myself 
and go or Dave will have it against me.” 

“ I think Cousin Cynthia will go to Baltimore 
pretty soon,” said the little girl. 

“ Honey,” said Mrs. Pinner, “ if I were you I 
would give up expecting all that on the part of 
my cousin, I certainly would. She’s busy with 
her school work, you know.” 

She had not thought of that. Neither had Mr. 
Dave Pinner. 

“ He said that he was going back to talk about 
the baby,” she said, insistently. 

‘‘ So he did,” agreed Mrs. Pinner, “ but Dave 
said that the asylum was a lively place and he’d 
like you to see it. Father, Dave must have been 
very much pleased to tell us right out that he was 
going back.” 

Mary Daingerfield went to school five days in 
the week, Mr. Pinner seeing her safely over the 
road, sometimes on horseback and again in the 
buggy ; always in the buggy when it was raining. 


>79 


Maiy Writes to Dave 

The weather had turned very cool the day 
after Mrs. Pinner put the asylum address in the 
little drawer of her bureau, but it was cold indeed 
before she arranged the day for the trip to Balti- 
more. 

“ IPs a journey for me, father,” she said. “ I 
mortally hate to ride in the cars, and I don’t like 
to leave you over night, for a fact I don’t ; you’re 
an old man and you’re not strong.” 

“ Never mind about me,” said Mr. Pinner. “ I 
can get along very well.” 

“ Dave certainly wasn’t thinking of you,” said 
Mrs. Pinner, “ when he proposed my going to the 
asylum. I’m afraid he doesn’t realize that neither 
of us is young any more.” 

The journey to Baltimore was a tedious one. 
The old lady was tired and cross the greater part 
of the way, declaring again and again that she 
was too old for such a car ride, and that it was 
a shame for a woman in her sober senses to come 
away and leave an old husband with nobody but 
servants. 

“If anything happens to grandpa to-night, 
Mary,” she said, “ do you think I will ever get 
over it ? ” 


i8o Mrs* Ptnne/s Little Girl 

Did she mean if grandpa were to die in the 
night ? 

When they reached the city they went directly 
to a hotel. 

In the morning the old lady was still in a fussy 
mood. She had not spent a night away from 
Hayfields for fifteen years and she wondered 
aloud and dejectedly how grandpa had stood it. 
Little Mary Daingerfield felt very miserable as 
she thought first of an awful night at Hayfields 
with the kind old gentleman ill in his bed and 
Liza and none of them knowing what to do, and 
then of the orphan asylum whither they were 
going to see little Sterling Frederick Mortimer 
Daingerfield, named for an officer in the Kevolu- 
tionary War. 




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M 







CHAPTER X 
At the Asylum 

Mrs. Pinner and the little girl were received 
very graciously at the asylum. The matron her- 
self conducted them through the room of the little 
children on up-stairs to the room of the toddlers. 
Baby Daingerfield, as he was called, was in the 
latter room. 

All around the children’s room there were 
long, low benches, and here and there out on the 
floor was a little rocking-chair. There were sev- 
eral small tables, with little straight chairs in 
their neighborhood, and a plentiful sprinkling of 
miscellaneous toys. More than one little girl af- 
fectionately hugged a dolly as large as herself and 
a dozen little boys were marching to the beat of 
a drum. Such a scene, no doubt, had greeted the 
eyes of Mr. David Pinner, but the blue blood in 
the veins of Mary rebelled at the thought that 
Cousin Cynthia had not promptly taken their 
baby away. 


184 Mrs^ Pinner's Little Girt 

“ Her first cousin’s child,” thought the quaint 
little girl, “ her own little cousin.” 

Well,” Mrs. Pinner was saying to the matron, 
“it certainly is a nice place. I am sure they 
have a good time together. I don’t know 
whether I ever saw so many children at one 
time. This little girl of mine has been wanting 
to see the baby very badly. Isn’t it a nice place, 
Mary?” 

“ It’s an orphan asylum^'^ said Mary. 

“Yes, but Dave was right, an orphan asylum 
is a mighty fine institution. My son in Hew 
York,” she explained to the matron, “wrote to 
Mary here and told her to ask me to carry her 
over to Baltimore. She’s the kind to worry 
about things, and she’s been worrying about the 
baby. Dave said he thought that if she could 
see an orphan asylum she’d be satisfied.” 

“ Just wait till she sees the baby,” said the 
matron, smiling. 

They entered the room of the toddlers and the 
matron and Mrs. Pinner drew back, interested 
and alert. 

Mary looked about. There were perhaps fifty 
toddlers in the room. They all wore little long- 


At the Asylum 185 

sleeved gingham aprons. A little boy was run- 
ning at full tilt toward a woman who was sitting 
on the floor with her arms outstretched. Curls 
had grown on the bald head and Baby Dainger- 
field was taller and broader, but he gave his little 
old-time scream as he ran, and the same little old- 
time stumble into the outstretched arms. Just 
so he used to make for aunty in the little house 
at Willow brook. Mary gave a soft cry of won- 
der and delight and ran to where the curly head 
was buried on the woman’s shoulder. Baby 
Daingerfield was laughing rapturously. 

“ He’s mine,” said Mary, ‘‘ he’s our baby.” 

“ Is that so ? ” said the woman, and she seemed 
very much pleased. 

Mrs. Pinner and the matron approached. 

The baby turned his face about and stared at 
everybody. 

“ Baby ! ” cried Mary, holding out her arms. 

“ Isn’t that just like a little woman ? ” inquired 
Mrs. Pinner, and the matron smiled and nodded. 

But the baby frowned. 

“ Why, you ain’t afraid of your own sister ? ” 
asked the nurse. “ You’re just cuttin’ up, that’s 
it. A smart boy like you ain’t never afraid of 


i86 


Mrs* Hnner's Little Girt 


his own sister ? Why, he’s learned a word since 
he’s been at the ’sylum. Just you call him that 
way again, little girl, and I’m sure he’ll act 
pretty.” 

But the frog was in Mary’s throat, and tears 
were in her eyes. 

“ The baby doesn’t know me,” she faltered. 

“Well, I say it’s a shame,” said Mrs. Pinner, 
“ and she came all the way to Baltimore to see 
him and stopped over night in a hotel. Never 
mind, honey ! ” She took out her watch. “ You 
can play with him for half an hour while I rest 
in the parlor. He’ll soon get to know you. 
Why, little boy, what are you smiling at me 


for?” 


The next instant the old lady felt the baby’s 
arms embracing her knees. 


“ He’s so fond of ladies,” explained the nurse, 
“ and he gets a powerful lot of attention.” 

“ Ma-ma ! ” lisped Baby Daingerfield. 

“ There, he’s said his word ! ” cried the nurse. 
“The poor little mites,” said the matron, 
“ they think every lady is a mamma.” 

“Bless his heart, did he call me mamma?” 
exclaimed the old lady, in a glow of pleasure. 





At the Asylum 187 

and she stooped and lifted the little fellow from 
the floor. He was well satisfied. 

Then the matron proposed that Baby Dainger- 
field spend the half hour in the parlor with the 
visitors, and he went down-stairs in Mrs. Pinner’s 
arms. 

“ If I thought I could take proper care of him 
I’d carry him home,” declared the old lady. 

“Ever so many people want him,” said the 
matron, “ but we’ve orders not to put him up for 
adoption.” 

“Well!” cried Mrs. Pinner, “who gave those 
orders ? ” 

She had not thought of any one having the 
right to give orders about the Daingerfield baby. 

“ Why, his guardian to be sure,” answered the 
matron, “ Miss Daingerfield, of Boston.” 

“ Oh!” 

The “ Oh ! ” came from the lips of the meek 
little girl. It was full of surprise and dismay. 
Her Cousin Cynthia wanted the baby to stay at 
the orphan asylum. 

“Grandma,” she said with a dry little sob, 
“Cousin Cynthia wouldn’t care if you’d take 
him. He’s more to me anyway than he is to 


i88 


Mrs. Pinner* s Little Girl 


Cousin Cynthia. / say you can have him, 
grandma, I say you can take him back to Hay- 
fields. He isn’t Cousin Cynthia’s to give away, 
he’s mine.” 

Mrs. Pinner looked at the matron instead of at 
that wistful, uplifted face. 

“ I ought never to have brought her to Balti- 
more,” she said. “ I ought to have had the sense 
to know how it would be. But Dave wrote and 
Mr. Pinner wouldn’t give me any peace till I 
started. For the first time in my life I was 
ready to go back on my word and get out of 
this trip, for I dreaded it on my own account, I 
do so mortal hate car-riding. I ought to have 
had the gumption to stay at home on somebody 
else’s account.” 

“She’ll be over it by to-morrow,” said the 
matron. 

“ Don’t you believe it ! ” cried the old lady, 
“ but oh, dear me, I wish you were right, I do, 
indeed. We’ve had her ever since the middle of 
July, and if ever two people have showered the 
best they’ve got on one little girl, father and I 
have done it; but I believe Mary here would 
rather live in a shanty with Kit and Buz and the 


At the Asylum 189 

baby than have her nice little room at Hay- 
fields.” 

“Oh, no, she wouldn’t,” said the matron, 
“you’re maligning her, Mrs. Pinner; I know 
little girls better than that.” 

“Mary, tell the truth, wouldn’t you?” asked 
the old lady. 

“ I wouldn’t like Kit and Buz and the baby to 
live in a shanty,” said Mary, politely. 

“ But if they did live in a shanty, they and the 
black woman, you’d rather be with them than 
over at Hayfields ? Say yes or no.” 

“Yes,” said Mary, and drooped her little 
brown head very low. 

For a quarter of an hour she had the baby to 
herself in one corner of the asylum parlor ; then 
she hugged him and kissed him and walked 
backward out of the room. Soon afterward she 
was sitting in a cab with Mrs. Pinner, rolling 
over the Baltimore cobble-stones on the way to 
the train. 

Mr. Pinner met them at the gate at the very 
end of the journey. He was well and smiling. 
Supper was on the table, he announced ; they 
must come in and rest and then he had some- 


iQo Mrs. Hnner's Little Girl 

thing to show them. He looked at Mrs. Pinner 
and said in an undertone : 

“ It came at an opportune moment, eh, 
mother ? ” 

Mrs. Pinner, however, was tired and cross. 

“ I don’t believe it’s a bit of use, father,” she 
said. “ I have about come to the conclusion that 
you and I are piling up disappointments for our- 
selves straight along. You’ve been disappointed 
so many times in your life that I feel as if I just 
didn’t want you to be disappointed any more, as 
if I couldn’t bear it.” 

She was tired and sick and nervous from her 
journey. 

“ Tut, tut I ” said the old gentleman. “ You’ll 
feel better after you eat your supper.” 

‘‘ Oh, I’m hungry,” said Mrs. Pinner, “ and I’ll 
look at it all right after supper, but I don’t be- 
lieve it’ll give any great pleasure. You know 
that you were mighty sore about the pony. 
You thought for a while that the pony would 
satisfy.” 

“Dexter is a very useful little animal,” said 
Mr. Pinner, “ and somebody thinks a whole heap 
of him, I know she does. But ponies are nicer 


At the Asylum 191 

in the summer-time than in cold weather. There 
are some other things that give more pleasure in 
the winter-time than a pony.” 

“ Mary would rather live in a shanty with the 
black woman and Kit and Buz and the baby 
than here at Hayfields with us, father, that’s a 
fact.” 

“Oh, no,” said the old gentleman, “you’re 
making a mistake, mother, Mary Daingerfield 
doesn’t want to live in a shanty.” 

Mrs. Pinner’s little girl quietly ate her toast 
and quietly drank her tea, not very much of 
either. She felt sorry for Mr. and Mrs. Pinner, 
and she felt sorry for herself, but her mamma’s 
arms had been around her and her mamma’s 
voice had said : “ Mary, you will promise to take 
care of Kit and Buz and the baby.” Mr. and 
Mrs. Pinner did not understand why it was that 
she felt as she did toward Kit and Buz and the 
baby. They had chosen her on account of her 
brown hair and her brown eyes and because her 
name was Mary, but they had wanted a little 
girl who would make Hayfields lively ; a sensible 
head and a heart like the little white calf’s were 
troublesome things in an adopted child. 


192 


Mrs* Pinner's Little Girl 


“ Now, mother, are you rested weU enough to 
look at it ? ” asked Mr. Pinner. 

“ Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Pinner. “ Come, Mary ! ” 

Mr. Pinner proudly led the way to the parlor. 
The hanging lamp in the centre of the room 
had been lighted and turned high. A fire was 
burning briskly on the hearth ; warmth and com- 
fort greeted them in the parlor. And there at 
the end of the long room was a beautiful upright 
piano. 

“ Father, it is pretty ! ” cried the old lady. 

“ Mary, what do you see ? ” asked the old 
gentleman. 

“ I see a piano,” said Mary. 

“ Who do you think it’s for ? ” 

The child did not speak. 

“ You know who it’s for, don’t you, Mary ? ” 
asked Mrs. Pinner. 

The brown head nodded. 

“ She’ll sit at it in the evenings and play for 
us, mother, just like she plays for the teacher 
down at the school. We don’t want to miss all 
the music,” said Mr. Pinner, cheerfully. 

“ Go sit on the stool for father and let him see 
how you look,” ordered Mrs. Pinner. 


At the Asylum 193 

Slowly the little girl obeyed. The old gentle- 
man was at the stool before her ; he screwed it 
to suit her height and then walked away, back- 
ward, admiration glowing in his face. 

“ There we are ! ” he cried, jovially. If 
somebody wasn’t so tired I’d ask for a little tune, 
just the notes, you know, mother.” 

“ Mary, strike the notes,” said Mrs. Pinner. 

Three notes were struck, then the brown head 
went down on the keys of the piano and some- 
body’s legs felt very long as they hung from the 
stool. 

“ She’s tired with her journey,” said Mr. Pin- 
ner. 

“ Yes, she’s tired,” agreed Mrs. Pinner, “ and 
I’m tired too ; but I’m tired of more things than 
the journey. I’m tired, father, seeing you day 
after day laying yourself out to please and al- 
ways failing. "We’ve made a mistake. We 
might have known there could be only one Mary 
Pinner.” 

“One Mary Pinner?” questioned the old 
gentleman, and his eyes turned to the painting 
on the parlor wall. It looked blurred from 
where he stood. 


194 Pinne/s Little Girl 

“ Yes,” continued the old lady, in a loud voice, 
‘‘we oughtn’t to have been so taken with her 
name and her curls and her brown eyes. I’m 
not blaming the child, mind, she can’t help it that 
she hasn’t been able to give even a little bit of 
her heart to you and me, father.” 

“ She calls us grandpa and grandma,” said Mr. 
Pinner, in gentle rebuke. 

“ She does it because she thinks we ought to 
get a little something for all we give, but it 
keeps her thinking hard to do it,” declared the 
old lady. “ For a little while she didn’t call us 
anything, you remember, and set us foolishly re- 
joicing. Then with a terrible effort came the 
‘grandpa’ dnd ‘grandma.’ When we’re acting 
real nice we’re called what we asked to be called, 
what we thought we had a right to be called 
when we took her in the law, but now and then, 
when we don’t happen to be smirking and smil- 
ing, and when she’s dead in earnest herself, the 
‘ Mr. Pinner ’ and ‘ Mrs. Pinner ’ slip out. 
Haven’t you noticed? The other one calls us 
‘grandpa’ and ‘grandma’ as if she was glad 
to do it. We wanted a little girl to laugh about 
the place and make things lively, you know we 


195 


At the Asylum 

did ; and we’re disappointed, you know we are. 
We were foolish in our choice, we ought to have 
taken Kit ; she wouldn’t have been grieving her 
heart out.” 

“ Yes, she would, yes, she would,” said the old 
gentleman. 

Mrs. Pinner indulged in a mirthless laugh. 
“ Don’t you believe it, father,” she said. “ Kit’s 
happy at the yellow house.” 

“ I meant this one would be grieving her heart 
out wherever she was,” said Mr. Pinner ; “ our 
taking Kit would not have made it any better 
for this one.” He walked over to the piano 
stool and laid his hand gently upon the little 
brown head. 

“ Mother,” he said, “ you’re all tired out with 
your trip, but I don’t want you ever to think for 
a moment that I’m not satisfied with our little girl.” 

He remembered that hug and the whispered 
words. He understood now that she had not 
been thinking of her own pleasure when she 
asked him to let her have a horse; she had 
simply wanted to borrow a horse ; to get bravely 
upon its back and ride to her own ; and he loved 
her and honored her for it. 


196 Mrs» Pinner's Little Girt 

“We are not the ones to grumble, mother,” he 
murmured. “ Haven’t we hungered for Dave for 
over twenty years ? ” 

The brown head felt the hand patting it affec- 
tionately, but a wild hope had dawned in the 
heart of that meek little girl. 



CHAPTER XI 
An Anxious Time 

Little Mary Daingerfield screwed up her 
courage to the sticking-point and sought the 
presence of Mrs. Pinner. 

The old lady was knitting, that was a good 
thing; she was always complacent and would 
rather listen than talk when her needles were 
flying. She nodded in answer to Mary’s request 
to “ say something.” 

The matter had been thoroughly thought over, 
the courage was screwed up to the sticking-point, 
but for all that it was difficult to begin. For an 
instant the brown eyes looked far away, then 
they returned resolutely to the face of the old 
lady. 

This was the weighty proposition, in Mary’s 
own words : 

“ Mrs. Pinner, I want you to ask grandpa ” — 
the old lady felt a twinge of conscience at the 

Mrs. Pinner ” and the “ grandpa ” — “ to let you 


200 


Mrs* Pinne/s Little Girl 


trade me off for Kit. You can’t help it if you 
did make a mistake but you will never be disap- 
pointed with Kit. She’s been here to three 
parties and you haven’t got tired of her yet. 
Kit shows right out when she likes things and 
she will tell you all the time how much she likes 
the pretty little room and the pony and the piano 
and everything. Grandpa said last night when 
you said that you ought to have chosen Kit in- 
stead of me, that I would be grieving wherever I 
was. You tell him that I won’t” — here she 
spoke very fast — “ I am much older than Kit, 
and I will ask the Joneses to let me get the baby 
out of the orphan asylum. I think they will, be- 
cause Kit says Mrs. Jones was half sorry she 
didn’t take the baby too, and I know that Cousin 
Cynthia will be glad, she only meant that strange 
people should not have the baby. Then I will 
be near Buz. Kit gets Buz into so much trouble, 
and they are both little. You tell grandpa that if 
he lets you trade me for Kit, I won’t be grieving 
but will be happy and content.” Then the brown 
eyes drooped and Mary added, vehemently, “ Mrs. 
Pinner, if Kit lives at the yellow house, she won’t 
be a lady.” 


An Anxious Time 


201 


The knitting was lying in a heap on the floor 
when Mrs. Pinner asked gravely, 

“ How about yourself, Mary ? Are you sure 
that you will be a lady if you are brought up at 
the yellow house ? ” 

“I am so much older than Kit,” repeated 
Mary, ‘‘and I’m so different. I think I will be a 
lady,” but a little fear crept into the brown eyes. 
“ Perhaps Mrs. Jones will let me go to the same 
school with Kit.” 

“ So you think pretty well of the little school, 
do you ? ” asked Mrs. Pinner. 

“ Oh, yes,” said Mary, “ I think very well of 
the little school.” 

“ And you are of the opinion that Miss Burdet 
is a tolerable fair teacher ? ” 

“ She’s a good teacher,” said Mary fervently. 
“Maybe after a while Miss Jane Harrington 
would let Buz go to school, too. Miss Burdet 
would let a boy as little as Buz come to her 
school, don’t you think ? ” 

“ I shouldn’t wonder ! ” 

“ You will ask grandpa ? ” 

“ It’s this way,” said the old lady, gravely. 


202 Mrs^ Pinner's Little Girl 

“ there’s more than grandpa to give permission ; 
there’s the law.” 

“ Oh I ” said Mary. 

“Yes, indeed, the law will have to be con- 
sidered.” 

At this important period of the conversation 
Mr. Pinner came in. 

“ What are you two discussing ? ” he asked. 

“ We’re on the law now,” answered the old 
lady, and she began to laugh. 

“ I wish you could have heard her, father,” she 
went on, as soon as she had recovered from her laugh. 
“ I never listened to anything cuter or more un- 
selfish than the things this little girl has been 
saying. No, Mary, don’t run away, I want you 
here.” 

She put out her hand and reluctantly the little 
girl came to her side. 

“ I’m to tell you, father, that if you give her 
away over to the yellow house she will be per- 
fectly happy.” 

“ How’s that ? ” asked Mr. Pinner, in surprise. 
“Would she rather be over at the yellow house 
than here ? ” 


“ That’s what she said.” 


An Anxious Time 


203 


“ My ! My I ” said Mr. Pinner 
“ I would be happy if Kit were here,” corrected 
Mary. 

“ She wants to be traded for Kit,” explained 
Mrs. Pinner. 

“ Oh ! ” cried Mr. Pinner, understandingly. 
Then he added : “ Mother, you’re getting paid up 
for what you said last night. Mary, don’t you 
know that when grandma gets excited she says a 
whole lot of things that she doesn’t mean ? ” 

It almost seemed as if this might be true, there 
was such a wealth of love expressed in the pres- 
sure of the arm that held her. 

“ She’s to get the Joneses to adopt the baby 
too, and she’s going to keep a strict eye on Buz ; 
and, sometimes, I haven’t a doubt, she’ll slip 
down to see the black woman, eh, Mary ? ” 

‘‘ Yes,” whispered Mary. 

“ Now, father, she wants you to agree to all 
this. I’m kind of out of it because I’m to come 
into possession of the other little girl. I wish 
you had been where you could have heard. She 
called me ‘ Mrs. Pinner ’ every time, but always 
you were ‘grandpa.’ ” 

“ I forgot,” said Mary. 


204 Pinner's Little Girl 

“ You’re getting paid back for your tantrum, 
mother,” said the old gentleman. 

“ I guess so,” said the old lady. “ I told her 
that I didn’t know how we would manage the 
law business. Yes, honey, you belong to us, ac- 
cording to the law, and Kit doesn’t.” 

“If I were willing, couldn’t the law be 
changed ? ” asked Mary. 

“ Father, what do you say ? ” asked the old 
lady. 

“ Well, well, well 1 ” was all that Mr. Pinner 
could think of saying. 

Then Mrs. Pinner took the little girl upon her 
lap. 

“Honey,” she whispered, “listen to me. 
There’s no use talking, you’ve crept into father’s 
heart and you’ve crept into mine. I said last 
night that there was only one Mary Pinner, and 
that is so. You’re not a bit like our little girl 
that’s gone, but you’ve got cunning ways of your 
own and you can no more help grieving about the 
other children than father and I could help griev- 
ing about little Mary Pinner and about somebody 
else too. I was miserable for a whole year after 
my little girl died and gave no pleasure at all to 


An Anxious Time 205 

the folks around me. It did hurt me that father 
was so lavish with you, and I thought that it 
wasn’t any use, that you hadn’t a bit of love to 
give to either of us. I wanted your love last 
night, and I want it now, and I will want it to- 
morrow. It wasn’t the company of the frisky 
little girl I was hungering for — though I wouldn’t 
mind having that too — it was your affection, you 
dear, quiet, little thing. I am a mite comforted 
to-day. I think you love grandpa a little and he 
is more deserving than I. I think when grandpa 
touched your little brown head last night and 
said that he was satisfied, even though you were 
sitting on the piano stool with your face pressed 
to the keys while the other one would have been 
playing whether she knew how or not, that he 
stirred your heart a little and that you and 
grandpa are closer because an old woman came 
back from Baltimore tired and cross.” 

‘‘ I like you, too,” said Mary, “ but Kit is my 
sister and Buz is my brother and I can’t bear to 
have the baby live at an orphan asylum, and I 
promised mamma that I would take care of them.” 

“ Dear heart,” said the old lady, softly, “you’re 
too little to do it.” 


2o6 Mrs, Pinner's Little Girl 

“Would Mary Pinner have been too little if 
she had had Kit and Buz and the baby to take 
care of ? ” asked Mary. 

“ Did you ever hear the like of that, father ? ” 
cried Mrs. Pinner. “ I declare I don’t know what 
to do.” 

Mr. Pinner also was troubled. 

“Suppose I write to Dave,” he suggested. 
“ Mother, we ought to get that baby out of the 
asylum.” 

“I say so too!” cried Mrs. Pinner. “But, 
father, it will hardly be right for us to meddle. 
We wanted a little girl and we got her through 
the kindness of Miss Daingerfield. She is as nice 
a little woman as I ever met. She must have 
some intentions about the baby. She has ordered 
that he isn’t to be put up for adoption.” 

Mr. Pinner was not an interfering man. He 
heaved a sigh, rose from his chair, and walked 
the floor. 

“Well, anyway,” he said, “it won’t hurt to 
write to Dave.” 

“No, it won’t hurt to write to Dave,” ac- 
quiesced Mrs. Pinner. 

But if Dave Pinner said anything about the 


An Anxious Time 


207 

Daingerfield baby in that lengthy answer to his 
father’s letter, Mary was not told. There was 
such an important item in the letter that all minor 
matters were passed over. Dave was to be mar- 
ried and he was coming home to live. He would 
be there by Christmas if he possibly could, he 
hoped to eat the Christmas dinner with them. 

The old lady and the old gentleman who had 
been in the habit of saying anything and every- 
thing before the little girl who was theirs in the 
eyes of the law began to whisper in their happi- 
ness over the marriage and the home-coming of 
Dave, and the little girl grew careful about in- 
truding upon them. 

But notwithstanding the utmost care and cau- 
tion, Mary subsequently learned what was really 
going to happen. There was talk about a lady 
and children, muffled and cautious talk about the 
children. Evidently Dave Pinner was going to 
marry a widow. 

Mr. and Mrs. Pinner had made a greater mis- 
take than they knew when they adopted a little 
girl according to the law, for, of course, those 
other children must necessarily be first. Mary 
Daingerfield was glad of one thing, that she had 


2o8 


Mrs* Pinner* s Little Girl 


not been traded for Kit ; it would have been so 
very hard for Kit. The others would not be 
exactly grandchildren but they would be very 
near to it; Dave Pinner’s wife would be their 
mother and Dave Pinner would be their father 
in the law. But the old gentleman and the old 
lady were very generous. They were as kind 
and tender with the little brown-eyed girl as if 
they still coveted her love, whereas in a little 
while a wealth of child-love would be poured 
upon them. 

“ I love them too,” said little Mary, “ and so 
do Kit and Buz, but I’m glad now that Kit isn’t 
here at Hayfields.” 

She began to think then of that old original 
plan by which with the help of aunty she could 
take care of Kit and Buz and the baby. If she 
were willing and if Mr. and Mrs. Pinner would 
agree it seemed to her that surely the law might 
be set aside. She wished that she understood the 
law about people adopting children and she told 
herself again and again that Mr. and Mrs. Pinner 
ought not to have been in such a hurry. They 
did not need the law to force them to do the 
just thing toward a child taken for their very own. 


An Anxious Time 


209 


She was busy during the day down at the 
little school where she was getting on nicely with 
her lessons and her music, and one evening Miss 
Burdet came to the old house and played an ac- 
companiment while the little girl sang. It was 
after the teacher had gone home that Mary said, 

‘‘ Some time, grandma, I want to ask you some- 
thing.” 

“Can’t you ask it now?” inquired Mrs. 
Pinner. 

“ I wish you would say that you would do it 
before I ask,” said the little girl. 

“ Grandpa did that once and got caught,” 
said Mrs. Pinner, laughing. “ I’m afraid, Mary.” 

“ Your son is coming home at Christmas, isn’t 
he ? ” asked the little girl. 

“ Yes, Mary,” said Mrs. Pinner, “ and I am 
more than glad that I can say it.” 

“ And you’re glad he’s going to bring his wife, 
aren’t you ? ” 

“ Very glad.” 

“And you’re glad he’s going to bring the 
children ? ” continued the questioner. “ You’re 
glad he’s going to marry a widow with a whole 
lot of children, aren’t you ? ” 


210 Mrs* Pinner^ s Little Girl 

“Well, well,” said the old lady, laughing. 
“Father, listen! I believe somebody is just a 
little bit jealous ! ” 

“ Mary,” she added, “ I’m gladder than I can 
say.” 

“ It will be nice for you and grandpa,” said the 
little girl. 

“Mother, it’s a shame,” said Mr. Pinner. 
“Look here, Mary, no matter who comes to 
Hayfields you’re not to take a back seat. 
You’re our little girl.” 

“ Only in the law,” said Mary. 

“ I wonder what it is she wants to ask me ! ” 
said Mrs. Pinner, when Mary had gone to her 
bed an hour later. 

“ She thinks a good deal about the law,” said 
the old gentleman, laughing softly. “Well, 
well, so you’re glad, mother, that Dave is 
going to marry a widow with a whole lot 
of children. Shame on you when there’s a 
sweet little girl in the house already.” 

“ Who belongs to us only in the law^'" said Mrs. 
Pinner. “ You noticed how she said that ? ” 

“I noticed. She likes us a good bit, mother, 
or she could never have used that tone.” 


An Anxious Time 


211 


“ It’s a wonder she ever tells me anything the 
way I laugh right out,” said the old lady. “ I 
must try to keep my face straight when she gets 
up her courage to let me know what’s on her 
mind. I’m dying of curiosity.” 

“ Maybe if you go into her room she’ll tell you 
to-night,” said Mr. Pinner. 

Mrs. Pinner went softly into the little room 
and saw Mary Dainger field lying asleep in her 
white bed. She tiptoed noiselessly out. 

I reckon this isn’t so awful weighty like the 
other, that going to live at the yellow house,” 
she said. ‘‘Anyway, she can sleep on this and 
I doubt very much if she was able to sleep on the 
other.” 

Mr. Pinner was late one afternoon in calling 
at the school for Mary. It was almost five 
o’clock. 

“We must ride up briskly,” he said, “or 
mother will be frightened.” But after he 
spoke he walked his horse. 

“ I’ve a queer feeling in my head, little girl,” 
he explained, as they rode down the lane. “ I’ve 
had it the greater part of the day and I’ve been 
very busy. I had to see so many people. I 


212 


Mrs^ Ptnne/s Little Girt 


called at the doctor’s and he gave me a whole 
lot of medicine. I’ll have to show my medicine 
bottles in a hurry to keep mother from scolding 
me for bringing you home in the dark.” 

It was dark when they dismounted and went 
into the house, leaving the chestnut mare and the 
little gray pony fastened to the posts. 

Mrs. Pinner met them at the side door. 

“ What’s the matter ? ” she cried. “ I’m scared 
to death ; it’s after five o’clock and there’s a ter- 
rible storm coming up through the meadow.” 

Mr. Pinner produced his medicine bottles with 
a slight laugh, he did not understand about the 
storm. 

“ Mother,” he said, “ I think I’ll go to bed.” 

Mrs. Pinner forgot the storm in the sudden 
anxiety that his words caused. 

“Certainly you must go to bed, father,” she 
said, scrutinizing the old gentleman’s drawn 
face. 

Mr. Pinner was in bed when the first clap of 
thunder broke over the house. 

A thunder-storm in the winter is a more ter- 
rific thing than a thunder-storm in the summer, 
very much more so to timid people. 




An Anxious Time 




The frightened housemaid was called into the 
sick-room by her terrified mistress, but the cook 
remained in the kitchen where she sat with her 
apron over her head. 

Mary stayed near the door of the sick-room ; 
she was very anxious about Mr. Pinner. 

Suddenly the old lady bounced out. She was 
wringing her hands. 

“Mary,” she said, “Pm in terrible trouble. 
Father is very ill and there’s nobody to go for 
the doctor. There may be a man in the barn, I 
don’t know. Your horses are still in the lane. 
I wonder they don’t break loose. Job’s at the 
store ; if he wasn’t he’d be in the closet, and oh, 
I can’t blame any of them, they’re human if they 
are black. Isn’t this awful ? ” 

She dashed excitedly back into the sick-room. 

The next instant the cook heard Mrs. Pinner’s 
little girl say : 

“ If grandma asks where I am you tell her I’ve 
gone for the doctor.” 

In a sort of dazed condition Liza heard the 
door open and shut and knew that the smallest 
thing at Hayfields was outside in that terrible 
storm in the winter-time. 


214 


Mrs^ Pinner's Little Girl 


Two hours later, dripping wet, bespattered 
with mud, Mary Daingerfield was back at Hay- 
fields with the doctor. 

The storm was over but not the anxiety about 
Mr. Pinner. Until dawn the doctor and Mrs. 
Pinner rubbed the patient till their arms ached. 

‘‘It was a hard attack,” said the doctor, in the 
light of the dawn. “ It’s well I got here.” 

“ If you hadn’t ? ” questioned the old lady. 

“ He’d been gone, that’s all.” 

“ Father,” said Mrs. Pinner, stooping over the 
bed, “ do you know that Mary, our little Mary, 
went out in the storm for the doctor ? ” 

“ I know, I know,” said the old gentleman. 




CHAPTER XII 
Alt's Well 

Mrs. Pinner’s little girl had been made much 
of ever since she arrived at Hayfields, and only 
twice had the old lady lost her temper and flared 
out, but after the feat of going for the doctor in 
the storm, Mary’s praises were sung in every di- 
rection throughout the old house. 

“ There was only one Mary Pinner true 
enough,” said the old lady, “ but I tell you 
what, father, there is only one little Mary Dain- 
gerfield as well.” 

“ That’s certain,” said the old gentleman, 
“ there’s only one little Mary Daingerfleld.” 

Mr. Pinner was growing better day by day. 
He would be up and about by Christmas. Mrs. 
Pinner was very thankful that she had not been 
obliged to write to Dave. She wanted her son 
sorely, but she wanted him to reach Hayfields, 
with his wife and the children, on Christmas day. 

“ Mother is looking forward to having a regu- 


2i8 Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 

lar big, old-time Christmas dinner,” said Mr. 
Pinner. 

Mrs. Pinner was happj in the anticipation. 
One day she said to Mary : 

“Honey, have you forgotten that you had 
something to ask me ? Father, don’t you think 
that if there is anything in creation this little 
girl would like to have and we can give it to her, 
we ought to do it ? ” 

“ I certainly do,” said Mr. Pinner. 

“ There, Mary ! ” cried Mrs. Pinner, “ now you 
ask right out.” 

Then the little girl made known her plan. 
Neither the old gentleman nor the old lady 
laughed as she divulged it. She asked them to 
loose those bonds of the law that held her to 
Hayfields, to let her take the money that had 
been accumulating in the little bank and to go 
back to the house in Willowbrook that her papa 
had rented, there to gather together Kit and Buz 
and the baby, and aunty too. She could not 
spend the money in the little bank to better ad- 
vantage than by using it to set herself and Kit 
up in a little business. Aunty would make cakes 
and she and Kit would sell them. In the sum- 


AlVs Well 


219 


mer there was a camp-meeting near Willowbrook 
and at that time, especially, they would have a 
flourishing trade. 

“ Think of her thinking of all that ! ” cried the 
old lady. 

The old gentleman reached for the two little 
hands and held them very close. 

“ Do you want to leave us, Mary ? ” he asked. 

Weeks ago she could have met his eyes with 
an honest “ yes,” now she could not. Her little 
heart was torn. 

“ I don’t want Kit to live at the yellow house 
any more,” she said, “ and I want Buz and the 
baby.” 

“ And she wants you and me a little bit, I be- 
lieve, mother.” 

‘‘ Do you, Mary ? ” questioned Mrs. Pinner. 

“ You will have the other children,” answered 
the little girl, but she knew and they knew that 
she wanted them too. 

“ So if you can’t have all of us you will choose 
Kit and Buz and the baby, is that it ? ” asked the 
old lady. 

Mary nodded. 

“ Even though you’ll be poor ? ” 


220 Mrs. Pinner* s Little Girl 

“ Yes,” answered the little girl very softly. 

“ Father,” cried Mrs. Pinner, enthusiastically, 
“ she’s been saying her prayers awful good down 
in the little church, I’ve been noticing. Now, 
you and I owe Mary a great deal and I’m of the 
opinion that we ought to make a bargain with 
her. First, dear heart, I’ve got something to 
tell yo%c ; father and I both think that the little 
church is better than the big one. Father’s had 
leanings that way a long time and the night of 
the storm just settled me. I felt glad all over 
that the two of us had been attending the little 
church and my soul cried out that such things 
count, and they do.” 

“Yes, they count,” said the old gentleman, 
“and we must make a very honest bargain, 
mother.” 

“ Suppose we say,” suggested the old lady, 
quite tranquilly, “ that if she stays here for the 
Christmas dinner and meets Dave’s people, and 
after that still wishes to carry out her plan, we 
will lend help instead of hinderance ? ” 

“ Will that satisfy you, Mary ? ” asked Mr. 
Pinner. 

The brown head nodded. 


AlVs Well 


221 


“Her house will have to be furnished and I 
reckon the store ought to have a counter in it,” 
said Mrs. Pinner, with a peal of laughter. “ You 
must be ready with your pocketbook, father, 
when the little black bank is broken. We’ll see 
to it that Kit gets away from the yellow house 
and that Miss Jane relinquishes her hold on Buz, 
and that the baby comes home from the asylum.” 

“Does that satisfy you, Mary ? ” repeated Mr. 
Pinner. 

The demure little girl said “ yes ” to this, but 
she spoke it very softly. 

So it was arranged. She could remain at Hay- 
fields if she wished, or she could go. Of course 
she would go, but she found herself wishing 
more than once that Mrs. Pinner was not quite 
so enthusiastic over that imaginative fixing up of 
the store. If her mamma and papa had lived, 
she and Kit would never have had to keep store. 
She wondered if aunty would not grumble a 
little. 

One pleasant afternoon Mrs. Pinner drove over 
to the post-ofiice. She took Mary with her and 
allowed the little girl to run around to see aunty 
while she herself attended to an important matter. 


222 Mrs* Pinner' s Little Girl 

Aunty was grumbling with the backache. 
She had just finished a tremendous wash. 

“ Aunty,” said Mary, “ did you know that Mr. 
Dave Pinner is going to be married and that he 
is coming home to live ? ” 

“ Sakes alive, no ! ” cried aunty. “ Well, dat's 
a putty how-do 1 ” 

“ He is coming home with his wife and the 
children,” said the little girl. 

Then aunty cried, “ I cla’ ! ” and sat down on 
the floor. “ Little Miss Mary, come right here ! ” 
she commanded. 

The child went obediently into the black arms. 

“Dar ain’t no dependin’ on nobawdy’s folks 
but your own, dat’s a fact!” declared aunty, 
irately. “ So dat big good-for-nuttin’ Dave Pin- 
ner gunno fetch a woman an’ a lot o’ chillen 
down to Hayfields ? Honey, dat’s what I calls 
a mean trick. If you ain’t got j’^our own mamma 
an’ your own papa to look after you, I tell you, 
chile, you’s got it hawd in dis world.” 

“Would you like us all to be together again 
and you come to live with us, aunty ? ” asked 
little Miss Mary. 

“ Would I, honey ? ” screamed the old woman. 


Atrs Well 


223 

“Ain’t I hongry for you all? Jest don’t talk 
’bout it.” 

“Would you come even if you had to work 
hard, aunty ? ” 

“ I’d come a-trottin’,” she cried. 

“One satisfaction I got durin’ dese monts,” 
said aunty, after a little, “ is dis : I ben writin’ to 
Miss Cynthy. I ben givin’ it to her hawd fer 
handin’ my chillen round to nobawdy an’ sendin’ 
’em off to de ’sylum. Dat was de bigges’ iniqui- 
tous ting I eva heered of ! Honey, many a time 
I ben tankful you learned your ole aunty to write 
a letta. I ben tellin’ Miss Cynthy dat while I 
was knocked out a home I’s got some hawt for 
de chillen. I ben tellin’ her dat you chillen was 
her own kin an’ dat she can’t knock de kinship 
off. So Dave Pinner, he gunno git married, is 
he? He gunno come home an’ try an’ shuffle 
you, is he ? Honey, dey took you in de law, an’ 
dey bound to stand by de law. Dey give you a 
piano. Kit was tellin’ me.” 

“The law can be changed sometimes,” said 
Mary. 

“ It kin ? Laws I you pore little soul ! I wish 
de Day o’ Jedgment was here an’ I had all my 


224 


Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 


little white chillen in my arms. ’Ginst dat time, 
what’s gunno become of you all anyway, an’ 
what’s gunno become of your old black aunty ? ” 

Mary no longer entertained any doubt. She 
was sure that aunty would be glad to make the 
cakes and to help sell them too, but she also felt 
a satisfaction in the thought of those letters that 
the old woman had written to her Cousin 
Cynthia. No, the kinship could not be shaken 
off! 

Mrs. Pinner spoke well of aunty all the way 
back to Hayfields. 

“ The old woman’s had it hard too,” she said. 
“ I reckon she’d rather be with you children than 
anywhere else in the world, and I am sure that 
she’s a real good nurse. We white folks don’t 
always give the blacks the credit they deserve.” 

“Kit and Buz like aunty better than any 
grown person in the world,” said Mary. 

“ Don’t you, too ? ” asked Mrs. Pinner. 

“ Once,” answered Mary, “ I thought that I 
liked Cousin Cynthia better than aunty, but I 
don’t now.” 

“ Then you like the black woman best after 
all,” said Mrs. Pinner. 


AWs Welt 


225 


‘‘ I like her third best,” said Mary. 

The old lady was satisfied. Mr. Pinner might 
be the first of those two people ahead of aunty, 
that was right ; she was glad to be the second. 

“Father,” she said, when they reached Hay- 
fields, “it’s all settled. The black woman has 
been taken into the secret of the store and she’s 
willing to do her part.” 

“ I didn’t tell her about the store,” said Mary. 

“ Maybe she isn’t going to leave us, mother,” 
said Mr. Pinner. “ If she’s pleased with Dave’s 
folks she’s to stay on at Hayfields, that was in 
the bargain, you know.” 

The little girl crept quietly out of the room, 
but she heard the old lady say : 

“ Father, we oughtn’t to tease her. Can’t you 
see that the child is torn two ways ? She wants 
to go and she wants to stay.” 

“You’re right, mother, it’s a shame to tease 
her,” said the old gentleman. 

The “ grandpa ” and the “ grandma ” came so 
easily now. Yes, she was torn two ways. She 
wanted to go and she wanted to stay. 

“ Somebody is taking good long looks at the 
furniture in the little room,” said the old lady, 


226 Mrs. Pinner's Little Girl 

“ and playing quiet little good-bye notes on the 
piano.” 

“ Mother, it isn’t fair,” said Mr. Pinner. 

“ She was found yesterday hugging the pony,” 
declared Mrs. Pinner in triumph. 

ITo, it was not fair. She ought never to have 
been given away to these kind old people. She 
had not forgotten Kit and Buz and the baby like 
the little red calf had forgotten the old cow down 
in the meadow, but she had learned to love 
grandpa and grandma dearly. She wanted to 
take care of Kit and Buz and the baby but she 
wanted to stay at Hayfields too. 

“ Is one of the children a little girl ? ” she 
asked Mrs. Pinner on another occasion, while her 
brown eyes fastened themselves steadfastly upon 
the piano. 

The expected answer came : 

“Yes, one of them is a little girl. Father, 
Dave said that one of them was a little girl, didn’t 
he?” 

Mr. Pinner did not answer. Of course he 
knew how it would be ; the little girl would own 
the piano, and he was sorry. 

“ Honey,” said the old lady, “ father gave it to 


AWs Welt 


227 

you. You needn’t let her play on it unless you 
wish.” 

“ I won’t be here,” said Mary. 

“ Then you can just carry your property with 
you,” said Mrs. Pinner, emphatically. 

“ If you and grandpa do what you say about — 
about the store,” said Mary, “ the little girl may 
have the piano and all my other things too.” 

“Not your desk? You wouldn’t give away 
the desk that grandpa thought you’d like better 
than anything in the world ? You couldn’t do 
that ? Why, you write your diary on your desk. 
You certainly will carry the desk with you, 
honey ? ” 

Grandma’s voice was very kind, but Mary said 
“ No,” and ran out of the parlor. 

“ I’m sick waiting for Christmas,” said the old 
lady. 

“Mary,” called Mr. Pinner, “come here a 
minute.” 

He knew she would come at once ; she was the 
most obedient and the very best of little girls. 

She was glad that he did not lift her to his 
knee or to the arm of his chair. 

“Mother and I have something to tell you, 


228 


Mrs, Pinner" s Little Girl 


Mary,” he said, quite gravely, while the old lady 
screwed up her face protestingly. ‘‘We wanted 
to wait till Christmas, but if you’d rather hear it 
now — mother, if she’d rather hear it now ” 

“You’d rather wait till Christmas, wouldn’t 
you, honey ? ” interrupted Mrs. Pinner. 

The little girl said “ Yes,” meekly, and again 
she ran away. 

The great house at Hayfields was in a commo- 
tion on Christmas day. Everywhere outside the 
windows you could see snow. The two-horse 
sleigh had gone to meet Dave and his family at 
the Willowbrook station; the dinner was in 
steady progress and Mrs. Pinner was bustling and 
happy. 

Well, why shouldn’t she be? She was kind 
and generous to everybody ; it was only fair that 
she should have what she wanted in the end. 
She had said long ago to grandpa, and he had 
agreed with her, that Hayfields was a lonely 
place and they must enliven it. It was still a 
quiet place even after the little girl came, except 
on those days when Kit and Buz were visiting. 

When the dinner was well under way, the old 
lady arrayed herself in her best black silk and 


AWs Well 


229 


helped Mary into the prettiest of her white 
dresses ; then they went over to the parlor and 
sat down with grandpa to wait. 

“ Mother,” said the old gentleman, “ I wish 
they’d hurry.” 

“ I wish so too,” said Mrs. Pinner. “ Father, 
I imagine somebody is thinking about the store.” 

“ Not on Christmas day,” said Mr. Pinner, with 
a tender little laugh. 

When the sleigh-bells were heard jingling mer- 
rily down the lane, and when the old lady and 
the old gentleman stood up excitedly, and then 
rushed into the hall, Mrs. Pinner’s little girl made 
her escape. They were eager to meet their own 
and she was Mrs. Pinner’s little girl only in the 
law. After Christmas day she would not be 
that, she would be Mary Daingerfield, keeping 
store over at Willowbrook. 

The commotion caused by the arrival of the 
party was centred in the hall, and if Mary Dain- 
gerfield’s hands had not been pressed close to her 
ears she would have heard several very familiar 
sounds, one of them the big brave voice of a very 
little boy. 

The first thing she did hear was the voice of 


230 Mrs. Ptnne/s Little Girl 

the old lady. It penetrated the hands pressed to 
the ears, and instantly they dropped. 

“ I thought we’d find her here ! You go right 
in and tell her. Well, father, you don’t mean to 
say you’ve left Dave already ? ” 

Mary thought for an instant that it was Dave 
who was coming in to tell her, for although she 
had unstopped her ears she had not opened her 
eyes ; but it must be Dave’s wife. Perhaps Dave 
had persuaded his wife to tell her that she need 
not go away from Hay fields on their account, 
that the place was large enough for all of them. 

She heard a woman’s gentle step, she felt ten- 
der arms about her — there was something almost 
familiar in the caress. She looked up, and there 
was Cousin Cynthia. 

“You dear little thing,” said Cousin Cynthia, 
“ I’ve been hearing all about it.” 

“We have a whole heap to thank her for,” 
said the old lady, gratefully. 

“ And so have I,” said Cousin Cynthia, with a 
queer little laugh. 

“Look there!” said Mr. Pinner, in distress. 
“ This wasn’t the right way to do it, mother. 
The little girl is crying.” 


AWs Welt 


231 


“ She doesn’t understand,” said Cousin Cyn- 
thia. “ Mary, won’t you let me help you take 
care of Kit and Buz and the baby ? ” 

“Yes,” said Mary, “but I don’t want to leave 
grandpa and grandma.” 

“ Father,” cried the old lady, “ she doesn’t 
know that her Cousin Cynthia is Dave’s wife.” 

She knew it then with that tightening of 
Cousin Cynthia’s arms. 

“ Tell her,” said Mrs. Pinner, “ that Kit and 
Buz and the baby are all here, that they are the 
children we’ve been expecting. Tell her that the 
black woman is out there with the baby.” 

“ Here’s Dave,” said the old gentleman. “ In 
my opinion our little Mary has done as much for 
Dave as for anybody.” 

Dave thought so too, judging from the way he 
was smiling. 

“ I want to see her face,” he said, “ I want to 
see how big she is.” 

“ She’s thinking whether she’ll go over to Wil- 
lowbrook and keep store or stay here with us,” 
said Mrs. Pinner, “ you mustn’t bother her, 
Dave.” 

“Mother,” said Mr. Pinner, “you and Dave 


232 Mrs^ Ptnne/s Little Girt 

take yourself back to the rumpus, the rest of us 
will join you directly; somebody isn’t quite 
ready for the fun.” 

He sat upon the side of the little white bed, 
and presently he said : 

“ Maybe she’ll come to me for a while, and you 
take a chair and rest yourself.” 

The little girl and Dave’s wife both obeyed. 

« 'VV'e’re old people, my wife and I,” said Mr. 
Pinner, speaking to Cousin Cynthia while he 
patted the brown head, ‘‘and we’re bound to 
make some mistakes in the raising of children. 
I’m glad you’ve come ; I’m glad you’ve brought 
Dave home ; we need you both. This little girl 
is all right now ; she’s made her decision ; yes, 
indeed, she has fully made up her mind to be 
Mrs. Pinner’s little girl.” 

Then Mary put her lips to the old gentleman’s 
ear. 

“ And Mr. Pinner’s, too,” she whispered. 


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